TimelineI was born in 1940 in San Francisco, CA while my parents were on tour with the Chinese Opera. Ultimately I was raised in Hong Kong and was a child actor appearing in more than 20 films. At the age of 13, I took up the study of wing chun gung fu under renowned wing chun master, Yip Man.
I left Hong Kong at the age of 18 and came to the United States making my way to Seattle, Washington where I worked in the restaurant of a family friend. I soon enrolled in the University of Washington where I pursued a degree in philosophy. I began to teach gung fu in Seattle and soon opened my first school, the Jun Fan Gung Fu Institute. Two more schools followed in Oakland and Los Angeles. I then married my wife, Linda and had two children, Brandon and Shannon. In the mid sixties, I was discovered while doing an exhibition at the Long Beach Internationals and a role as Kato in the tv series The Green Hornet soon followed. During this time, I was also developing my own martial art, which I named Jeet Kune Do, the English translation being: The Way of the Intercepting Fist. My art was was placed in a philosophical foundation and did not follow the long held martial traditions. Instead at its core it had the ideas of simplicity, directness and personal freedom. After The Green Hornet series was canceled, I encountered a lot of resistance while working in Hollywood and so I headed back to Hong Kong to pursue a film career. In Hong Kong I made 3 films, which consecutively broke all box office records and showcased martial arts in an entirely new way. Hollywood took notice and soon I was making the first Hollywood / Hong Kong coproduction with a film called Enter the Dragon. Unfortunately, I passed in 1973 before the film was released. This film catapulted me to international fame. Today my legacy of self expression, equality, and pioneering innovation continues to inspire people all around the world. You can learn more about that in the other pages of my website. |