Updated: June 03, 2024

Bruce Lee was the most influential martial artist of all time. He inspired millions of people and brought attention to martial arts in the Western world. He was born Lee Jun-fan on 27 November 1940, in San Francisco, California, while his opera singer father was touring the United States. He returned with his parents to Hong Kong as an infant and worked as a child actor. At age 13, he began learning martial arts. At age 18, he returned to the United States where he studied drama and philosophy and opened a martial arts school. At age 26, he first appeared as a martial arts fighter on American television. Lee created his own combat method that he called Jeet Kune Do or the Way of the Intercepting Fist, which combined different training methods such as kung fu, fencing, boxing and philosophy. He popularized philosophical quotes, such as the one starting ‘Be water, my friend…’. He returned to Hong Kong at the age of 29, where he became a writer, director, lead actor and fight scene choreographer.

Lee died at the age of 32 in Hong Kong on 20 July 1973, under mysterious circumstances. Up to now, the cause of Bruce Lee's death is unknown, although numerous hypotheses have been put forward, from assassination by triad gangsters to the more recent suggestion in 2018 that he died from heatstroke