THE LITTLE DRAGON

January, 1970
With his finances stretched to their limits, Bruce Lee closes his Los Angeles Jun Fan Gung Fu Institute in Chinatown but encourages Dan Inosanto to continue with classes privately at his own home in Carson, in the South Bay region of Los Angeles. Lee had long abandoned the idea of commercial outlets for his art and preferred the small, dedicated groups that were also operating under Taky Kimura in Seattle and James Yimm Lee in Oakland under him that were now exclusive to the point of anonymity.

22 January, 1970
Having fired Shelley Burton for his sub-par work on THE SILENT FLUTE; there was little to show for the almost $9,000 that had already been spent on script developmet. Bruce Lee and James Coburn convince Stirling Silliphant to take on the scripting duties himself.
The overworked writer only agrees on the condition that they meet several times a week to review and go through the first draft as it is being written, Lee begins drafting a story treatment of his own in broad strokes to ensure the script incorporates his ideas and that theme - the evolution of a martial artist towards self-enlightenment - is not lost in translation in the final shooting script.

05 February, 1970
Bruce Lee embarks on a four-day tour of the Dominican Republic with his friend, Rhee Jhoon-Goo, "the Father of American Taekwondo", to help him promote his schools. Several years since his work as Kato in THE GREEN HORNET, the TV show is still popular on the Caribbean island, and Lee's demonstrations there prove to be a big hit.

16 February, 1970
Bruce Lee accepts a much needed teaching assignment from Roman Polanski, in the plush resort town of Gstaad in Switzerland, for which he will be paid $10,000 for 10-days work. Polanski has returned to Europe to recover from the Cielo Drive murders, and has decided that physical exertion - he is an avid skier - is all part of the healing process.

28 February, 1970
Bruce Lee leaves Switzerland, bound for a few days stopover in the U.K., where Wu Ngan, the son of his parents' servants, he grew up with and was more or less adopted by his father, is now residing in London. Lee plans on asking Wu to carry on in his parents' footsteps and assume the role of his live-in housekeeper in Los Angeles.
Roman Polanski's generosity towards Lee extended beyond his stay in Gstaad; he was met in the U.K. with a driver at the airport and stayed in Polanski's London townhouse in Belgravia.

03 March, 1970
Bruce Lee returns to the U.S., eager to resume work on THE SILENT FLUTE and catch up on its progress during his absence. He also reluctantly sold his Porsche to his neighbour in order to fund his upcoming trip to Hong Kong to help with the necessary arrangements for his mother to move to the States - only his older brother, Peter, would remain on the British Crown Colony.

27 March, 1970
Bruce Lee, accompanied by Brandon, returns to a surprise hero's welcome when he is met by a phalanx of press and fans at Hong Kong's Kai Tak Airport. In a magnified case similar to the Dominican Republic, THE GREEN HORNET was an even bigger hit in Southeast Asia, and he was courted as a "Hollywood Star"; remembered still from his child star years as "Lee Siu Lung" - "Lee Little Dragon".

09 April, 1970
Bruce Lee is invited onto Hong Kong's most-watched television show, ENJOY YOURSELF TONIGHT, broadcast on the TVB network, co-founded by Shao Renleng 邵仁楞, "Run Run Shaw", a titan of Southeast Asia's media business. Lee proudly introduces his son and then unleashes a display of his physical prowess that even shocked Chinese audiences had rarely witnessed.

10 April, 1970
In Hong Kong, Bruce Lee is a star re-born following on from the rapturous reaction to the previous night's broadcast, where his appearance had even made the front pages of the British Crown Colony's many newspapers and tabloids. Lee appears on the rival RTV network show GOLDEN HOUR, again with Brandon by his side, for an encore performance. The demand for him remains unabated.

Paul McCartney announces the disbanding of The Beatles.

16 April, 1970
Bruce Lee and Brandon fly back to the U.S., film offers from producers follow him home over the Pacific, but Lee complains to a friend that none of them appear to be remotely sincere. One call is from the former head of production at the mighty Shaw Bros. Studios, Chow Man Wai 鄒文懷, "Raymond", who had caught Lee's TV appearances, proposed that he might like to make a film for his forthcoming company in Hong Kong. However, Lee has has no real interest in returning to Southeast Asia unless the "money is right", his sights are firmly set on Hollywood.

22 April, 1970
Bruce Lee writes to Bob Baker in Oakland asking for more "M pills", which he says he will share with James Coburn for their "tremendous experience". Baker has been supplying him with "holy stuff" for some time now.

30 April, 1970
Ed Spielman and Howard Friedlander deliver their first draft of THE WAY OF THE TIGER, THE SIGN OF THE DRAGON to Warner Bros. producers, Fred Weintraub, which he has commissioned at a cost of $3,800. The plot revovles around the adventures of a renegade Shaolin monk who is on the run in the American West of the late-1800s for killing a member of the Imperial household back in China.
The protagonist is an Eurasian by the name of "Kwai Chang Caine”.

01 May, 1970
There now exists a firm outline of THE SILENT FLUTE's story and characters - much of which is Bruce Lee's work - from which Stirling Silliphant can now fashion a shooting script from.

President Nixon and National Security Adviser, Henry Kissinger, orders the secret invasion of Cambodia by U.S. forces.

04 May, 1970
The National Guard opens fire on students protesting the expansion of the Vietnam War into neighbouring Cambodia at Kent State University in Ohio, killing four students and wounding nine others.

08 May, 1970
Raymond Chow and Ho Koon Cheung 何冠昌, "Leonard", another former executive from Shaw Bros. Studios, form Golden Harvest (HK) Limited, Hong Kong's latest film production entity.

24 May, 1970
Bruce Lee attends Rhee Jhoon-Goo's annual National Karate Championships in Washington D.C. with Stirling Silliphant, where he is presented with a Special Guest of Honor award.

Summer 1970
Fred Weintraub is told about Bruce Lee by his friend and fellow producer Sy Weintraub (no relation) - Sy is coincidently also one of Lee's A-list students - in relation to THE WAY OF THE TIGER, THE SIGN OF THE DRAGON script. Weintraub's meeting with Lee convinces him that he was found the ideal actor in the ideal vehicle to showcase his remarkable abilities.

June 1970
Filming begins on Steve McQueen's long-gestating racing project, LE MANS, on location in the Pays de la Loire region of France - the troubled production - Formula One driver, David Piper, lost a part of his leg in a crash - and cost overruns, would forever tarnish McQueen's career and reputation, and end his box office reign.

17 June, 1970
Bruce Lee writes to Bob Baker in Oakland to let him know that he doesn't require any more "stuff", citing "exceesive indulgence" as getting in the way of his training. He also notes that he has been experiencing some discomfort in his lower back due to "tons and tons of excercises".

A WALK IN THE SPRING RAIN.

13 August, 1970
Bruce Lee permanently injures the fourth sacral nerve in his back - a source of discomfort and pain that would plague him for the rest of his life - while performing his regular "Good Morning" exercises. He blames the incident on not having warmed up properly, but he is also attempting the routine with weights greater than his own body weight, then around a healthy 145lbs for his height and size.
Lee is placed on a strict regime of cortisone injections, painkillers and bed rest for at least six months; this restriction of his activity and mobility aside, his temporary invalidity also means he is unable to earn his living from his private students and without any meaningful savings to his name, he is truly fearful for the survival of his family for the first time in his life. Much to his embarrassment and shame, Linda is forced to find a minimum wage job in the evenings, and he is reduced to the role of a "house-husband".

September 1970
Bruce Lee keeps himself occupied during his period of bed rest by working on a multi-volume work on the martial arts, much of the notes and writings are almost-verbatim copies of the text drawn from his vast library, said to number close to 3'000 books, on subjects ranging from anatomy, philosophy and of course, the martial arts.
Lee had dabbled in a detailed follow-up to his first book, CHINESE GUNG FU: THE PHILOSOPHICAL ART OF SELF-DEFENSE, which was to be grandly entitled, "THE TAO OF GUNG FU", and had amassed stacks of photographs he had produced of himself with his students, but the project had never really gotten anywhere. This latest attempt appears to be more of an exercise to keep his mind, if not his body, sharp rather than a serious attempt to undertake such a massive intellectual task.

18 September, 1970
American guitarist, Jimi Hendrix, dies from a barbiturate overdose, choking to death on his own vomit, at London's Samarkand Hotel in the U.K., he was twenty-seven years old.

04 October, 1970
American singer, Janis Joplin, dies from an heroin overdose at the Landmark Motor Hotel in Los Angeles, she was twenty-seven years old.

19 October, 1970
Stirling Silliphant completes the first full draft of THE SILENT FLUTE, Bruce Lee is delighted with it, and pronounces it to be "of Jeet Kune Do quality and your skill in writing is a special art, the art of the soul".
With the script approved by James Coburn as well two days later, Silliphant approaches one of Los Angeles' top power brokers, lawyer Barry Hirsch, to ask him to help place the project with a studio for "about a million dollars" the film will cost to make. Silliphant and Coburn also pay for a budget breakdown for THE SILENT FLUTE production, costing $500. In the end, Hirsch only managed to secure interest from Warner Bros., which was already developing Fred Weintraub's THE WAY OF THE TIGER, THE SIGN OF THE DRAGON.

November 1970
Following three months of bed rest, Bruce Lee accelerates the otherwise slow process of rehabilitation to get back into shape and surprises even his own doctors with his recovery, though he would remain tied to the use of cortisone and painkillers from this point onwards. The demands he made on himself were enormous as his debts mounted with mortgage payments and medical bills, which even the resumption of his private lessons could not cover adequately and had to be supplemented with loans from his friend and student, Bob Baker.
THE SILENT FLUTE represented more now than just an artistic statement; it was his most immediate path to keeping his head above water financially and Warner Bros.' offer of using their blocked rupees in India to finance the production was one that Lee was keen to accept, however much it would compromise the original vision of THE SILENT FLUTE.

23 January, 1971
Stirling Silliphant introduces Bruce Lee to Warner Bros. CEO, Ted Ashley, over dinner at his home and Lee is quick to cultivate a personal friendship with Ashley, who remembers that Lee's abilities "took me breath away".

29 January, 1971
Bruce Lee, Stirling Silliphant and James Coburn embark on a two-week location scout of India for THE SILENT FLUTE, although Lee's partners are sceptical about the country as being suitable from the outset. Warner Bros. are only willing to finance the film to the tune of all the currency that they are unable to take out of India, roughly a little over $600,000, but Lee is desperate to make do regardless. Warner Bros, has approved Herbert Coleman, who had worked extensively with Alfred Hitchcock, as THE SILENT FLUTE's director.

08 February, 1971
The Vietnam War spills into Laos, as South Vietnam - with the backing of the U.S. - invades the neighbouring country.

11 February, 1971
THE SILENT FLUTE team return to the U.S. after a difficult and unsuccessful tour of possible locations in India, where tensions surface among Bruce Lee with James Coburn and Stirling Silliphant. Lee's non-stop fidgeting and enthusiasm has grated on Coburn, whose star treatment in India has made Lee jealous and resentful. Warner Bros., relying on positive feedback from Coburn - the nominal "star" of the film - are told that shooting in India would be a logistical nightmare on such a tight budget.

24 February, 1971
The world's first microprocessor is introduced by Intel and Texas Instruments.

18 March, 1971
THE SILENT FLUTE team meet with Warner Bros. executives to decide on the fate of the film, and Lee learns a few days later that the studio has decided to pull out of the film. Even though Stirling Silliphant shared James Coburn's concerns about the viability of mounting the production in India, it is Coburn who is the subject of a devastated Bruce Lee's ire.

23 March, 1971
The flag is raised in the newly created country of Bangladesh, following a civil war with Pakistan and the involvment of India and the U.S.

26 March, 1971
With THE WAY OF THE TIGER, THE SIGN OF THE DRAGON project still in development limbo, Fred Weintraub pushes ahead with another script, a Western called, KELSEY, with a view to casting Bruce Lee in one of the three lead roles.

29 March, 1971
Charles Manson, along with three of his followers, are convicted for the Tate-LaBianca Murders and sentenced to death, these are later commuted to life imprisionments.

April 1971
The failure of THE SILENT FLUTE prompts Bruce Lee to pursue a quick payday to alleviate his dwindling bank balance, he asks his boyhood friend, Unicorn Chan, to approach Shaw Bros. for a deal on his behalf for a one-off film and also resumes discussions with Raymond Chow - he is after an offer of $10,000, plus creative control. The response from the studio is a standard boilerplate, eight-year actor's contract word $2,500, with no assurances of even a starring role.
In the meantime, unable to let go of his Hollywood dream, he begins working on an idea for a TV series of his own, AH SAHM.

06 April, 1971
Mao Zedong invites the U.S. Table Rennis team to visit China, the first delegation of Americans to visit the country in decades.

14 April, 1971
President Nixon ends the U.S. trade embargo against China.

May 1971
Actress Lau Leung Wah 劉亮華, married to one of Hong Kong's top directors working for Golden Harvest, Lo Wei 羅維, is dispatched to the U.S. to convince Cheng Pei Pei 鄭佩佩 , one of Southeast Asia's biggest stars, to return to the film industry. The star of 1966's blockbuster hit, COME DRINK WITH ME, declines the offer of work; but Lau had not forgotten Bruce Lee's recent TV appearances in Hong Kong and decides to make the most of her trip to Los Angeles and meets him up with him also at Cheng's home.
Amid a series of trans-Pacific calls to Raymond Chow, she signs Lee to a two-picture deal for $15'000 and assures his creative input with regards to script and director approval as well as the staging of his fight scenes - Lee had no intention of making his Jong Kong comeback, however temporary, as just merely an another hired actor.

13 June, 1971
The New York Times publishes revelatory extracts from "The Pentagon Papers", the government's forty-seven volume of "The History of U.S. Decision-Making in Vietnam, 1945–1968", leaked by military analyst Daniel Ellsberg.

21 June 21, 1971
Bruce Lee reports to Paramount Pictures studios to begin work on his guest appearance on LONGSTREET, a TV series created by Stirling Silliphant, who devotes an entire episode to Lee entitled, "The Way Of The Intercepting Fist".

23 June, 1971
LE MANS is a box office disaster for Steve McQueen.

03 July, 1971
Lead singer of The Doors, Jim Morrison, dies of heart failure at the age of 27 brought on by a heroin overdose, in his apartment in Paris' Le Marais district, France.

12 July, 1971
Bruce Lee leaves the U.S. for Bangkok, Thailand where principle photography is set to take place in one of the country's locations - as per the terms of his Golden Harvest agreement Lee makes a stop first in Hong Kong to ensure that he is paid a portion of his fee up-front, a much needed $10'000. He is $3,000 behind in his mortgage payments and has barely a $100 left in his bank account.
It is in Bangkok that Lee first meets Raymond Chow in person, who is banking on him to raise Golden Harvest's mediocre box office in the industry that Shaw Bros. dominates.

22 July, 1971
The first day of principle shooting begins on THE BIG BROTHER FROM TANGSHAN (which will be better known as THE BIG BOSS), in the remote village of Pak Chong, some ninety miles northeast of Bangkok. After spending the majority of his adult life in the U.S. and working in Hollywood, the primitive conditions and "loose" professionalism of the film unit come as a major culture shock to Bruce Lee. He has arrived at the start of Thailand's baking summer heat, and during its monsoon season. He complains about the swarms of mosquitos, giant cockroaches and the unit's lack of access to meat. Lee supplements his strict caloric intake with the vitamin supplements he has brought with him, but his weight drops to 128lb regardless, and he will never again regain his former body mass. Within days of the start of the shoot, he also manages to sustain a nasty cut on his hand which requires ten stitches from washing a glass in his hotel room.
He has however, had the opportunity to sample the local marijuana, which he reports back to Bob Baker in his letters, as "extremely good".

11 August, 1971
Bruce Lee clashes with an indifferent director, Wu Chia-Hsiang 吳家驤, and insists he should be replaced; Lau Leung Wah, on location as THE BIG BOSS' production manager lobbies for her husband, Lo Wei, to take over the film. Raymond Chow agrees, but Lee barely tolerates him either and notes that he "is no Roman Polanski", who doesn't think much of this new "upstart" from the U.S. or the film itself. During takes, Lo - an inveterate gambler - is more interested in listening in on the racing results on his portable radio as films in Hong Kong cinema are shot silent and later dubbed into the local Chinese dialect, predominantly Mandarin, which Lee does not speak. He bonds with the rest of the cast and crew, who are astonished to witness Lee's undermining of the director's role on the production and establish a new pecking order, with him on top. He is also revising the script as filming proceeds, which itself has already been rewritten by Lo.
The rushes being sent back to Golden Harvest in Hong Kong however, tell a different story and despite the troubled production, Lee's charisma and star power is there for all to see and Chow and his partner, Leonard Ho, realize they have something special on their hands. They are not the only ones to see Lee's potential however, back in the U.S., Lee's work on LONGSTREET has attracted the attention of Tom Tannenbaum, the vice president in charge of production at Paramount Television. "The Way Of The Intercepting Fist" is by far the series' strongest episode and has been chosen as LONGSTREET's season opener. Tannenbaum is desperate to feature Lee in three more episodes, but due to the remoteness of Pak Chong, it takes several attempts before he is able to get hold of Lee and ask him to return for more work.

September, 1971
Bruce Lee is featured on the cover of Black Belt Magazine, featuring his article, "Liberate Yourself From Classical Karate".

03 September, 1971
Amid great fanfare, THE BIG BOSS production returns to Hong Kong and Kai Tak Airport is overwhelmed with fans, and media outlets drawn as they are by Bruce Lee's presence. The hype does not let up in the few days he has left there until he returns to the U.S., and he appears that evening again on TVB's ENJOY YOURSELF TONIGHT; he has been seemingly deemed already to be the biggest thing to have hit Hong Kong in years.
Paramount Television's telegrams and calls to Lee have only served to raise his stock as a "Hollywood star" even higher in Hong Kong.

04 September, 1971
Bruce Lee has several days worth of additional shooting ahead of him before THE BIG BOSS is completed; during the last days of shooting in Thailand, a twisted ankle prevents him from finishing his scenes. Pick-ups are shot at Hong Kong's Royal Golf Club and the Wader Studios, where Lee had last worked as a teenager on THE ORPHAN.

05 September, 1971
Bruce Lee views a three-hour rough cut of THE BIG BOSS, and like everyone at Golden Harvest, is confident its success is assured.

06 September, 1971
Bruce Lee returns to the U.S. for a well-earned rest and to his family in Los Angeles; the trip home has been financed by Paramount Television who are also paying him $2,000 per episode, which amount to little more than extended cameos. His potential, as usual in Hollywood, has been squandered but Tom Tannenbaum brings up the possibility of building a new TV series, TIGER FORCE, around Lee in the future.

16 September, 1971
LONGSTREET's season debut, "The Way Of The Intercepting Fist", is broadcast on the ABC network and receives universal praise for Bruce Lee's standout performance; snatching all notices from that of the show's star, James Franciscus. Suddenly he is the talk of studio executives again. Stirling Silliphant's script, based on his experiences as Lee's student, is a virtual free seminar for Jeet Kune Do and succeeded in reaching audiences well beyond the martial arts cognoscenti, which had always been one of the goals on Lee's personal agenda. Unfortunately for the series creator and showrunner, Silliphant, LONGSTREET would not be renewed for a second season after its lacklustre twenty-three episode run in March of 1972.

24 September, 1971
At the recommendation of Warner Bros. CEO, Ted Ashley, his counterpart in their televison division, Tom Kuhn, invites Bruce Lee to a meeting to discuss his role for the lead in THE WAY OF THE TIGER, THE SIGN OF THE DRAGON, which is now being developed as a TV pilot for a seies to be called KUNG FU. Lee has worked extensively on script notes with an early draft of the pilot script, and on the face it, he is a natural choice for the lead role of Kwai Chang Caine.
Shortly after the meeting, Kuhn let's Ashley know that Lee will not be cast in the role, claiming that his strong accent is a major stumbling block for American audience - of course, it was all coded-language for the elephant in the room, TV networks just weren't willing to cast an Asian in a starring role for a prime time U.S. audience. Lee is not informed of Kuhn's decision.

01 October, 1971
Golden Harvest acquires the Yung Hwa Motion Picture Studios from it's distributor, the Cathay Organisation.

12 October, 1971
Bruce Lee meets Ted Ashley, who as much as he is enamoured by Lee's talents, would not commit Warner Bros. to offering Lee a firm deal - he had after all nickled-and-dimed him over THE SILENT FLUTE project - but neither did he want to see the possibility of losing him to another studio in town. Aware of a possible development deal looming with Paramount Television for TIGER FORCE, Ashley asks Lee to submit his own ideas for a possible project.

14 October, 1971
An office memo from Warner Bros. production manager, Jordan Davis, to Ted Ashley confirms the offer of a $25,000 retainer for Bruce Lee and his AH SAHM treatment for a TV series that will now be called THE WARRIOR. The offer has been authorised by Ashley following a second meeting with Lee. With the KUNG FU series likely to make it to broadcast first, it seems unlikely that Warner Bros. or ABC televesion will compete against themselves with another similar show if the KUNG FU: THE WAY OF THE TIGER, THE SIGN OF THE DRAGON pilot proves to be successful. The twelve month retainer is merely standard industry practice of locking up prospective talent with question marks over their future careers, and preventing them working with rival studios in the meantime.
Lee is still unaware that he has already been rejected for the KUNG FU series.

16 October, 1971
Bruce Lee arrives back in Hong Kong Linda, Shannon and Brandon - he is keen to have his family around him while he completes the second film in his Golden Harvest two-picture deal - also in tow is his friend and student, Bob Baker. Lee has decided to cast him as his opponent in the forthcoming film as a means of thanking Baker for his help and loyalty, particularly his financial assistance following his back injury.
The welcome and media attention at Kai Tak Airport is typical of the attention Lee attracts, and if anything, is even more frenzied than before, no doubt stoked by THE BIG BOSS trailer that has been running in cinemas since the beginning of the month.

October 21, 1971
Production begins at the newly christened Golden Harvest Studios at Diamond Hill's Hammer Hill Road in East Kowloon on the second film in Bruce Lee's contract, which Raymond Chow is keen to renew. The film's title would go through several reiterations - such as KING OF THE CHINESE BOXERS and SCHOOL OF CHIVALRY - before settling on FIST OF FURY. Despite their contentious relationship on THE BIG BOSS, Lo Wei was director once more - the job had been promised to him by Chow for taking on the previous film at such short notice - and Lee was even more uncompromising and confrontational with Lo than the first time round.

22 October, 1971
Bruce Lee appears with Bob Baker TVB's ENJOY YOURSELF TONIGHT, and in the demonstration section of the interview, side kicks Baker some fifteen feet off camera to the audience's delight. The free publicity that Golden Harvest was enjoying on Run Run Shaw's TV network and Hong Kong's number one talk show must have given Raymond Chow particular satisfaction.

23 October, 1971
A special midnight preview is held for THE BIG BOSS at the Queen's Theatre in Kowloon. The response is overwhelming and Bob Baker, along with Bruce Lee and Linda in attendance, is overcome with tears for his friend's success; Lee is mobbed once his presence has been detected by the audience and he barely makes it out of the screening in one piece.
The early reviews for Lee, rather than the film itself, are similarly enthusiastic and media attention on him is now more intense than ever; further one-off previews are held throughout the week leading up to THE BIG BOSS' general release.

October 31, 1971
THE BIG BOSS opens to record-breaking results, despite being denied screenings in Shaw Bros. cinemas, outstripping Hong Kong's current box office champ, 1965's THE SOUND OF MUSIC, with a twenty-three day haul of HK$3.2 million. On a paltry budget of just $100,000, THE BIG BOSS repeated record-breaking performances in both Singapore and Malaysia and earned a then-unprecedented $5 million during its initial release in Southeast Asia, or HK$30 million. The success of this single film alone saved Golden Harvest from almost certain bankruptcy; and by the end of its theatrical lifetime, THE BIG BOSS' worldwide grosses would exceed $50 million.

November 1971
RTHK Broadcaster, Ted Thomas, interviews Bruce Lee on the public service's radio station, RHK. The newly minted star is in fine, confident form. He brushes aside the numerous challenges from pretenders wishing to bring him down to size on the movie sets or on the streets and goes on at some length about the perils of fame, admitting: "I am not as bad as some of them, but I definitely am not saying that I am a saint."

05 November, 1971
A further draft of KUNG FU: THE WAY OF THE TIGER, THE SIGN OF THE DRAGON is completed by writer Herman Miller incorporating many of Bruce Lee's ideas that he'd presented to Warner Bros. back in October of 1971.

01 December, 1971
Bruce Lee signs an agreement that will extend his commitment with Golden Harvest for a further four films, for which he will receive a total of $80,000 - the equivalent of HK$800,000, easily the highest salary for any actor in Hong Kong cinema at the time. Unlike other top stars of the period, who will turn out three or four films per year, Lee's contract stipulates only two films per year - a pace of production that he believes will improve the quality of his work and allow him time to develop original ideas.
Lee has handled all the Golden Harvest negotiations himself without an agent or business manager, he is expecting all of his business dealings with Raymond Chow, whom he considers more of a friend than his boss, to be above aboard and honestly accounted for. Fatefully, Lee proposes the formation of his own company in partnership with Chow to make this next set of films under the creative control of what will become Concord Productions.

02 December, 1971
The United Arab Emirates is formed, comprising of Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Ras Al khaimah, Sharjah, Ajman, Fujairah and Umm Al Quwain.

07 December, 1971
Shortly after the completion of principle photography on FIST OF FURY, Bruce Lee is informed of Warner Bros. decision to not proceed with THE WARRIOR, nor cast him in KUNG FU - a double blow that only strengthens his resolve to prove that his appeal is more universal than Hollywood believes it to be. Several days later, Lee responds to Ashley diplomatically, though he is still defiant about the possibilities ahead of him, "But damn it, I am going to win one of these days."
Warner Bros. withholds the payment of Lee's $25,000 retainer, preferring to sit out the agreement for the full twelve months as they track the box office numbers being fed to them by their head of Far East distribution, Richard Ma, and await the grosses for FIST OF FURY.

09 December, 1971
Bruce Lee agrees to an interview with noted Canadian broadcaster, Pierre Burton, for his eponymous TV show on the CHCH network based in Ontario. Lee is on his usual charismatic form, discussing subjects ranging from his Hollywood students and martial arts to his newfound fame in Hong Kong. He is adamant that he intends to pursue both strands of his career on either side of the Pacific, even though he remains economical with the truth about the fate of his dealings with Warner Bros.
In the evening, Lee attends the 3rd annual Mandarin Film Exhibition with the A-list of Hong Kong and Taiwan's movie industry stars and executives, where he is naturally the centre of attention. Before the assembled press and media, Lee and Raymond Chow announce the formation of their joint venture, Concord Productions.

29 December, 1971
Bruce Lee completes his story treatment for GREEN BAMBOO WARRIOR, which he intends to shoot on location in South Korea or Japan - it will be an expensive - by Golden Harvest standards - period film, incorporating the philosophical subtext found in THE SILENT FLUTE. Lee had every intention that his third film would not only mark his company's debut, but that it would also be his directorial debut, a highly ambitious attempt at wearing so many hats this early on in his career, relatively.

06 January, 1972
Bruce Lee writes to Roman Polanski in London, but is unable to interest the director in taking on the job of working on GREEN BAMBOO WARRIOR.

16 January, 1972
Bruce Lee is interviewed shortly before his departure for U.S. from Kai Tak Airport by TVB, recording a special Chinese New Year message for ENJOY YOURSELF TONIGHT's forthcoming TV special.
Lee's trip to Los Angeles is both business and personal, although at this stage in his life, there seemed little to separate the two - with his success in Southeast Asia, Lee is looking to Hong Kong as a more permanent base in his immediate future. The sale of his Bel Air home will unlock any equity due on the property and relieve him of the burden of those mortgage payments, as he arranges for the shipping of its contents to Hong Kong, being packed by Linda and their children who had gone ahead of him several days earlier.
However, the change in his living arrangements hasn't curtailed his desire to replicate his success on this side of the Pacific, and he hopes to interest Warner Bros. in co-financing GREEN BAMBOO WARRIOR during his meeting scheduled with Ted Ashley.

10 February, 1972
Bruce Lee returns to Hong Kong without a deal in place for the GREEN BAMBOO WARRIOR with Warner Bros., but he is no less determined to find a way back to Hollywood under his own terms. Lee did however have another idea in mind, a fish-out-water story based on his own experiences with arriving fresh off the boat in the U.S. back in 1959, something he began referring to as MĚNG LÓNG GUÒJIĀNG, as his directorial debut.

15 February, 1972
Bruce Lee reluctantly meets with Lo Wei to discuss a possible third collaboration. It is at Raymond Chow's urging, which he argues will give Lee more time to work on his script and pre-production for MĚNG LÓNG GUÒJIĀNG; Chow is alarmed that at this rate, there will be no new Bruce Lee film for the rest of that year. Lee agrees in principle that should a suitable script be made ready to shoot, he will put his plans for his own film on hold.
Chow orders Lo to drop everything and work exclusively on a script for Lee.

17 February, 1972
President Nixon makes a historic visit to China meet with Mao Zedong - Bruce Lee views the opening of the country to the West as a positive akin to his longstanding cause for promoting Chinese culture through the martial arts, "Maybe in the contrast of comparison, some new things might grow."

22 February, 1972
KUNG FU: THE WAY OF THE TIGER, THE SIGN OF THE DRAGON is broadcast on the ABC network in the U.S. and proves to be hugely successful, turning former dancer, David Carridine, into a star as Kwai Chang Caine. A series of fifteen episodes is green-lit and goes into production at Warner Bros. Television. Its success in launching the "kung fu craze" in the West has a knock-on effect of emboldening Warner Bros. into finally supporting producer Fred Weintraub's instincts for the genre.

28 February, 1972
Bruce Lee writes to Bob Baker in the U.S., asking him to ship "some coke for me", throughout the remainder of the year, he would make further requests for everything from handguns ("a classy derringer") to acid, hash or grass and psilocybin ("with info on how to take it").
Lee's flowery penmanship, which he once took such pride in, degenerates into a barely legible scrawl ("stoned as hell"); and on some occasions, leaves it entirely to Linda to contact Baker on his behalf, requesting and chasing up "shipments", which are addressed to "Wu Ngan, c/o Golden Harvest Studios".

11 March, 1972
The Queen Theatre is again the venue for the midnight preview of FIST OF FURY, Lee delights the packed house by appearing in the dress circle with Linda, Raymond Chow and his older brother, Peter, in attendance. The atmosphere is electric and it soon becomes apparent that the film will likely be an even bigger hit than THE BIG BOSS.

21 March, 1972
Raymond Chow invites the Lees for dinner at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, specifically to celebrate Linda's twenty-seventh birthday, upon leaving, the party bumps into Tawainese actress, Betty Ting Pei, and Chow introduces Lee to Ting Pei.

22 March, 1972
FIST OF FURY opens on general release in Hong Kong and racks up more than HK$4.3 million in sales, breaking the record set by Bruce Lee himself with THE BIG BOSS less than six months ago; at the end of it's initial run in the Asian markets, FIST OF FURY had earned over HK$90 million, and a theatrical lifetime total of $100 million.
Outside of its financial returns, FIST OF FURY is notable also for transforming Lee from merely being the most famous face in Hong Kong, and into a Chinese cultural superhero. The theme and storyline was deeply nationalistic and anti-foreign in sentiment, with the Japanese cast as the main villains and in defeating Bob Baker as the Russian martial artist, Petrov, Lee was pounding home the point that the Chinese were no "sick men of Asia".
The importation of bigger, foreign martial artists into Hong Kong action films to emphasize the superiority of their homegrown talent has become standard ever since.

April 1972
Despite turning round a script quickly, Lo Wei's treatment for SONG OF THE DARK NIGHT is rejected by Bruce Lee and even after his revisions and suggestions - including a change of title, YELLOW FACED TIGER - Lee is still not happy. With his double, record-breaking films behind him, and now a bona-fide business partner to Golden Harvest's boss, Raymond Chow, Lee has the clout to proceed with his own directorial debut, which is now moving forward with the working title of "ENTER THE DRAGON".
In reality, Lee's reasons for the rejection of Lo's work were probably motivated by his general lack of respect for the man and his work; and the promotion of himself as a "million-dollar director". Lee's ego demanded that he alone would be responsible as the master of his cinematic success and his audacious dreams of international stardom.

10 April, 1972
Bruce Lee's friend and student, Stirling Silliphant, arrives in Hong Kong for a visit and to specifically revive their dormant project. Since leaving the U.S., Lee has all but lost contact with his partners on THE SILENT FLUTE; but Silliphant has been quietly working on keeping the film alive and attempting to finance the film through independent means outside of the Hollywood majors. With Lee's unanimous success in the lucrative Southeast Asian markets, the writer is certain a budget can be secured to mount a production that will do justice to their vision of the film.
But Lee, who once regarded THE SILENT FLUTE as his sole means of achieving his dreams, remains ambiguous and even disinterested in the project now - perhaps as a way of forgetting those years of hardship and marginalization by Hollywood. He will only commit to remaining attached as a producer and technical advisor, but otherwise leaves it to Silliphant and James Coburn to do as they wish.
He no longer needs them to reach his objectives.
Lee's easy-going charm had hardened, even towards some of his old friends, and fame had extracted its price. He is quick to remind Silliphant that they probably cannot afford him now in any case, outwardly he is luxuriating in a superstar's lifestyle, but these trappings - such as the brand new red Mercedes 350SL, which he had purchased the previous month - are based on his future earnings and being secured for him through Golden Harvest, as is his $4,000 monthly allowance.

05 May, 1972
Bruce Lee, Raymond Chow, production manager, Chaplin Chang, and cinematographer, Tadashi Nishimoto, arrive in Rome for a week-long location scout ahead of the rest of the small cast and crew, which would include his favoured co-star, Nora Miao, and finally during the last days on location, his on-screen opponent and former student, Chuck Norris.
In the weeks leading up to his departure for Rome, Lee has begun an affair with Betty Ting Pei, and even gets his hair styled by her hairdresser in an almost identical his-and-hers haircut; Ting Pei also happens to drive a gold Mercedes 350SL.

10 May, 1972
Principle photography begins on ENTER THE DRAGON, much of their work is completed guerilla-style, since they don't have all the necessary permits to allow them all the access they need, such as in the establishing shots of the Colosseum. The scenes are stolen quickly and sometimes without much care, one sequence is notably out of focus, but they manage to capture everything they need to complete the Rome section of the film. Norris' student, Bob Wall, has tagged along at his own expense and Lee agrees to write him into the film.
All interiors will be shot back at the Golden Harvest Studios, including a small section of the Colosseum to be replicated, where Lee's final clash with Norris will take place.

May 18, 1972
The cast and crew of ENTER THE DRAGON, now including Bob Wall, returns to Hong Kong, where the usual media, press and fans greet their arrival in near hysteria. Lee is happy for the company of Chuck Norris and Wall, outside of his family, he feels isolated and friendless in Hong Kong, always aware that the smiling faces there are usually out to exploit him in one way or another.

19 May, 1972
Concord Productions Limited 協和電影有限公司 is registered in Hong Kong, a private company where Bruce Lee is the fifty-one percent majority holder with the rest held by Raymond Chow. Profits, after running costs and expenses have been deducted, are to be split equally between the two shareholders.

20 May, 1972
Bruce Lee makes an appearance on TVB's ENJOY YOURSELF TONIGHT, with Chuck Norris and Bob Wall, where are three give a martial arts demonstration - however, Lee's non-conventional approach and continued criticism of traditional Chinese martial arts is beginning to draw the ire of some. The challenges, whether real or for publicity as they splashed across the tabloids, come thick and fast with no sign of letting up.

23 May, 1972
Bruce Lee sets up Lo Yuen Enterprises Limited, a private company to manage his personal and business affairs that will shelter him from facing excessive tax bills as a U.S. citizen working and living in Hong Kong. One of the two directors of the company, and a major shareholder, is the one person outside of his immediate family that Lee still trusts, Wu Ngan.

June, 1972
Bruce Lee purchases the "Crane's Nest", 41 Cumberland Road, a two-storey townhouse located in Hong Kong's exclusive enclave of Kowloon Tong - "Nine Dragon Pond". Despite its modest appearance, the walled property is referred to as a "mansion" in land-starved Hong Kong, costing Lee a reported HK$1 million. He spends an additional HK$360,000 ($64,000) on renovations, including a Japanese-style garden, before taking up residence with his family the following month.
This acquisition, like everything else he owns in Hong Kong, is made possible by Raymond Chow against Lee's future earnings from Concord Productions; up to eighty percent of his portion of the shares from the filmmaking entity will be transferred to the ownership of Lo Yuen Enterprises, Ltd., as is his car and now, new home.

17 June, 1972
Five burglars are arrested at the Watergate Complex in the Foggy Bottom neighbourhood of Washington, D.C., attempting to plant wiretaps and photograph campaign documents at the offices of the Democratic National Committee. At the arraignment, four of the five arrested identify themselves as former CIA operatives, while the fifth was the security chief of the Committee to Re-elect the President - popularly known as CREEP.

18 June, 1972
Over a period of eight weeks, fifty-seven inches of rain - more than twice the annual average - falls on Hong Kong, resulting in landslides that topples a luxury apartment building, killing sixty-seven, and wiping out a squatter village in Sau Mau Ping, East Kowloon, claiming seventy-one lives.

24 June, 1972
Bruce Lee is the star attraction for TVB's twenty-four hour telethon for victims of the recent floodings, "Operation Relief", he is accompanied by Linda and performs demonstrations with his son, Brandon and Wu Ngan. The television event, the first of it's kind for Hong Kong, raises over HK$7 million, Lee personally donates HK$10,000 - even his severest critics in the press were unable to spin the story negatively.

23 July, 1972
Bruce Lee completes principle photography on ENTER THE DRAGON, over schedule and budget - more than HK$30,000 more than either of his previous two films - for reasons best known to himself, he withholds the original title and decides on THE WAY OF THE DRAGON as an alternative for Concord Productions' debut.
Without pausing, he segues straight into his next film during post-production on THE WAY OF THE DRAGON, mindful of his two-picture per year agreement with Golden Harvest. Lee repurposes many of the elements of THE SILENT FLUTE into what will be known as the rather unwieldy titled SOUTHERN FIST, NORTHERN LEG; his third attempt at making an artistic and philosophical statement on film.

August 1972
Bruce Lee's enthusiasm for his next film did not carry over to Raymond Chow, Concord Productions' business partner, who argued that SOUTHERN FIST, NORTHERN LEG would be too cerebral for Chinese audiences, and commercially, it would be expensive to mount as a period film to be shot on locations such as those in Japan or South Korea. Chow implored Lee to consider something more modern and less complex to produce.
The compromise turned out to be THE GAME OF DEATH, with all the philosophical subtext hidden beneath a kidnapping plot and an all-out action-packed finale. Chow is no supporter of this film concept either.

22 August, 1972
In a powerplay, Bruce Lee visits the Shaw Bros. Studios with Unicorn Chan, it does not take long before words of this reaches Raymond Chow, who alarmed at the prospect that his star asset might defect to his bitterest rival, falls into line and gets behind THE GAME OF DEATH.
Lee sets to work on a script from his story treatment, notes and sketches, but still finds the time to help out Unicorn Chan, who he has helped manoeuvre into a starring role for FIST OF THE UNICORN. He declines to appear in the film, but agrees to a day on set helping out on the fighting sequences - unknown to him, the producers have ordered the secret filming of the rehearsals, such is the potency of Lee's box office appeal, that they believe any association, no matter how tenuous, will translate into a profit for them.
Lee has already tried to boost Chan's mediocre career by giving him a co-action director credit on THE WAY OF THE DRAGON, as well as agreeing to appear at a glitzy press conference at the Miramare Hotel to announce the start of production on FIST OF UNICORN.

05 September, 1972
Eleven Israeli athletes at the Olympic Games Village in Munich are killed after eight members of an Arab terrorist group, five guerrillas and one policeman are also killed.

07 September, 1972
Bruce Lee begins shooting on THE GAME OF DEATH, well in advance of a completed script, but he has a clear vision of the film's third act in mind when he learns that his friend and former student, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, intends to stop off in Hong Kong during his NBA off-season travels in Asia. A single pagoda set is rushed into construction and Lee personally designs an outfit for himself to reflect the film's underlying martial arts credo, a modern one-piece tracksuit in vivid yellow with black stripes in stark contrast to the traditional garb his opponents will wear. Lee operates a closed set for the first time, and with a small, hand-picked crew battles it out with the 7" 2' Abdul-Jabbar over the course of five, long and exhausting days to complete the sequence that will be known as "The Hall Of The Unknown".

20 September, 1972
Bruce Lee writes to Taky Kimura inviting him over to Hong Kong to participate in THE GAME OF DEATH, the shy and retiring Kimura takes some convincing and Golden Harvest sends a airline ticket for him to arrive in early October for two weeks. Lee has enjoyed the camaraderie of working with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Chuck Norris and Bob Wall - a reminder of his more carefree years in the U.S. - and wants to extend this into the shooting of THE GAME OF DEATH by inviting his old friends to participate. He wants James Yimm Lee to be involved as well, but his friend's poor health makes travel, let alone long hard days on the sauna-like sets of Hong Kong, a viable option. James is suffering from terminal lung cancer, contracted likely from his work as a welder (though he is also a heavy smoker), but has hidden the true extent of the disease from Lee.
Lee has ghost-written a book under James' name, WING CHUN KUNG FU, and been sending him money, to help out financially.

25 September, 1972
Bruce Lee flies Dan Inosanto over and returns to THE GAME OF DEATH's pagoda set for a complicated martial arts weaponry duel. "The Hall Of The Tiger" sequence is finished over a mere three days, and includes scenes featuring Lee's only co-stars cast so far, James Tien and former stuntman, Chieh Yuan; for his leading lady, Lee is again considering Nora Miao - Betty Ting Pei is never seriously considered, her reputation as an actress is best known for appearing in various states of undress rather than any real dramatic talent.
However, it is while Lee is hard at work on "The Hall Of The Tiger", that he is visited by Warner Bros. producer, Fred Weintraub. His tenacity in shepherding KUNG FU from TV pilot to a TV series convinces his boss, Ted Ashley, to give him the go-ahead to offer Lee the starring role in another Weintraub project, BLOOD AND STEEL, written by Michael Allin. The caveat though, is that Warner Bros. film division will only allocate a budget of $250,000 - a huge amount for the Hong Kong film industry - that is a drop in the ocean for what Weintraub and his producing partner, Paul Heller have in mind or is needed. Richard Ma, Warner Bros. executive in Asia, assures Weintraub there is far more than that to be made from the Bruce Lee business just in Hong Kong alone!

14 October, 1972
The first episode of KUNG FU airs to almost uniform critical acclaim and is one of ABC's highest ratings winner throughout its initial three season run until 1975. David Carridine is forever identified and typecast in the role of Kwai Chang Caine.
By this time, Fred Weintraub had returned to the U.S. with Hollywood's first co-production with a Hong Kong studio, or specifically, Bruce Lee's Concord Productions, and a commitment of a further $250,000 from a reluctant Raymond Chow towards BLOOD & STEEL. Chow is opposed to sharing Asia's number one box office draw, as much as he knows how much this deal means to Lee.

22 October, 1972
"The Hall Of The Dragon" with Ji Han-Jae takes a further three days, with additional surveillance-like footage shot in the New Territories' countryside, before Bruce Lee orders the pagoda set struck and filming is finally halted indefinitely on THE GAME OF DEATH. Lee will produce an edit of all three sequences to review the work-in-progress, but already his thoughts are turning to BLOOD AND STEEL and his anticipated, and unprecedented, outing as Hollywood's first Asian star with the might of a major studio behind him.

29 October, 1972
Bruce Lee arrives in Los Angeles and is given the star treatment by Warner Bros. with a suite at the Beverly Wilshire, to negotiate his contract for BLOOD AND STEEL. Any suggestions that he should be merely grateful for this opportunity is soon swept aside when it becomes clear that he expects to be afforded all the privileges that come with co-producing the film, and to be involved in all aspects of the production.
Lee wants to rewrite the script himself, and suggests an alternate title, ENTER THE DRAGON; of equal importance is his insistence of being in sole charge of all the action scenes and fight choreography. He also has casting suggestions as the film is to be shot non-union on location in Hong Kong, one of the limitations of its still-below-average budget of $500,000 for a Hollywood production.
He approves Warner Bros. suggestion of Robert Clouse as director and meets with him after viewing a print of one of his most recent films, 1970's DARKER THAN AMBER - other than that, the negotiations remain open and inconclusive.

07 November, 1972
President Nixon is re-elected in one of the biggest landslide victories in U.S. history for a second term.

15 November, 1972
Bruce Lee, accompanied by Betty Ting Pei, checks into Hong Kong's Canossa Hospital to have his sweat glands removed from under his armpits by Dr. Otto Au. In the 1970's this is a fairly common and "fashionable" procedure to undergo. He also receives treatment for a bout of acne and advice on his weight loss, Lee use of diuretics, or "water pills", to promote his body's loss of salt and fluids that gives him the "ripped" appearance to accentuate muscle definition he favours.
It is not known whether Lee reveals his consumption of Nepalese hash, in the form of "cookies", and his use of cocaine - among other recreational narcotics - with Dr. Au during this consultation.

23 November, 1972
Bruce Lee signs his Warner Bros. contract for BLOOD AND STEEL, almost all the concessions he has asked for have been met - except his demands for a title change which he not lest rest and the assurance that he will be given creative input, if not approval, for the script.
Filming is being fast tracked by Warner Bros. to begin early in the new year.

December 1972
Director Robert Clouse and producer, Paul Heller, arrive in Hong Kong for a location scout - they are wined and dined by Run Run Shaw, who rarely socializes, and is keeping close tabs on this Hollywood production.
Bruce Lee with some time on his hands, continues working on THE GAME OF DEATH script and also convinces Raymond Chow to set up a film, TAE KWON DO, to star his friend, Rhee Jhoon-Goo.
Back in the U.S. principle photography begins on what for now is known as ENTER THE DRAGON - although discussions on the title would last through to the film's post-production - with Lee's co-stars, John Saxon and Jim Kelly, the holder of several prestigious world karate championships, including Ed Parker's 1971 Long Beach International Karate tournament.

18 December, 1972
President Nixon orders the Christmas bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong with "Operation Linebacker II", killing over 1,600 civilians during an eleven-day campaign, and discharging more than 20,000 tons of ordnance over North Vietnam.

02 December, 1972
Yip Kai Man dies from throat cancer at the age of seventy-nine, neither his students nor his family inform Bruce Lee of when or where the funeral is to take place. Many are resentful of his success and feel that Lee has attacked their master and his art with his criticism of classical martial arts. The opposite is in fact true, Lee spent time with Yip Man on many occasions since his return to Hong Kong, and remained on good terms with him, always crediting Wing Chun for giving him his start in the martial arts.
Lee is attacked in the Hong Kong press for his absence at Yip's funeral, their "love affair" with him is over and they are keen to see him toppled from the pedestal they themselves have place him on ever since his return visit to the British Crown Colony back in 1970.

20 December, 1972
Betty Ting Pei is admitted to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital for a "nervous breakdown", a euphemism for a suicide attempt precipitated it seems by Bruce Lee breaking off their relationship. He has acknowledged to those who are aware of the affair, that Ting Pei is "just a fling". She is later transferred to a private hospital, St. Teresa's, to recover and would, in her later years, be diagnosed as suffering from schizophrenia.

21 December, 1972
Bruce Lee pays his respects to Yip Kai Man at his wake, but the damage by the press is done - a popular newspaper cartoon at this time depicts a kow-towing Lee in front of Yip's shrine, apologizing for being late as he was "too busy making money".

December 23, 1972
Despite the negative press he is receiving, Bruce Lee's THE WAY OF THE DRAGON opens in Hong Kong to massive box office, his biggest yet, and sets a new record of HK$5.4 million, silencing his critics. He remains as popular, if tainted by controversy, as he has ever been, perhaps even more so and has proven himself to be in a class of his own.
The film's has already made back its budget in pre-sales to Taiwan alone prior to its Hong Kong's premiere, and gone into profit, eventually ending its lifetime theatrical release with a worldwide haul of $130 million.

30 December, 1972
James Yimm Lee passes away after a long battle with cancer in Oakland - Bruce Lee is devastated by the news and breaks down whenever he talks about James with his friends.
Kee's students, Ted Wong and Herb Jackson, are arrive in Hong Kong on the same day at Lee's request to bring over his training equipment and assist in assembling his home gym at Cumberland Road, he is working out harder than ever in preparation for ENTER THE DRAGON.

January 03, 1973
ENTER THE DRAGON begins the main portion of its shoot in Hong Kong led by a small American crew, like Lee before them, they discover that they are forced to work in reduced circumstances and resources compared to a standard Hollywood production. The work is cramped, chaotic, noisy and draining in Hong Kong's heat and humidity, and there is frustration in achieving their desired results by having to go through translators.
Crucially, Bruce Lee is nowhere to be seen or found, and refuses to appear on set due to some perceived hurt or sleight by Warner Bros. - but it appears more likely that he is suffering from a rare lapse of self-confidence as his moment of opportunity has now become a reality, he is having second thoughts. It is left to Linda - the film's "Bruce Lee wrangler" - to appease producers Fred Weintraub and Paul Heller who are also on location, with assurances they Lee will be there soon.
They attempt to keep the momentum of the production moving forward by shooting around Lee's absence until there are no more scenes left to film without him being in them.

08 January, 1973
Richard Lederer, Warner Bros' Exec VP of Worldwide Advertising and Publicity, writes to Ted Ashley with concerns about the title of ENTER THE DRAGON, though it is evident they are already thinking about a possible sequel or follow-up for Bruce Lee's next film with them, RETURN OF THE DRAGON.

22 January, 1973
Former President of the United States, Lyndon B. Johnson, dies from a heart attack at his ranch in Stonewall, Texas - he is sixty-four years old.

25 January, 1973
Bruce Lee finally reports to work on ENTER THE DRAGON, but he does not seem quite himself. Director Robert Clouse begins the day with a simple set up, just a close up of Lee with no dialogue, that requires dozens of takes as nerves get the better of the star. However, once Lee relaxes into the work, he transforms into his usual ebullient, and tireless, self for the duration of the production and never wants the day's shooting to end.
Cinematographer Gilbert Hubbs, is fast and efficient and the footage he is capturing of Lee is as sleek and dynamic as the star himself, even though he has never shot in the 35mm anamorphic format they are using in Hong Kong. The dallies being shipped back to Warner Bros. are being enthusiastically received, and word is spreading fast about of this little kung fu film starring a new sensation called "Bruce Lee"...and a dragon?

28 January, 1973
A ceasefire is signed in the Vietnam War, ending the twelve-year involvement of U.S. ground troops in Southeast Asia, and its "defeat" by the Communist-led Viet Cong.

01 February, 1973
Bruce Lee takes out $200,000 life insurance policy with American International Assurance Company, most likely to appease Warner Bros., where such contingencies for actors in a leading role are standard during the production of a film. Some contend that the producers are worried about the challenges that Lee is sometimes forced to accept from the stuntmen and large crew of extras that are run and supplied by Hong Kong's "Secret Societies", or Triads, as the reasoning behind the policy.
The U.S. crew are aghast at the sight of these "fights" that are over in seconds, though Lee is careful never to cause serious injury and just marks them to let them know who's boss. More importantly, he never has any of his challengers fired or removed from the set, many of them come away from their encounter proud to have been beaten and bloodied by Bruce Lee himself. In return, Lee made a point of always looking after the stunt crew and taking his meal breaks with them, rather than with the "higher-ups", and they in return are fiercely loyal towards him - Lee emphasized and understood the gang mentality better than most.

01 March, 1973
FIST OF UNICORN is released to a poor reception in Hong Kong cinemas, the film features heavy use of Bruce Lee in its advertising and features the secret footage shot of Lee rehearsing with the cast and crew. This sours Lee's relationship with Unicorn Chan and he sues the film's producers, the whole incident only heightens his sense of paranoia at being exploited and distrusting even fewer people around him in Hong Kong.

13 March, 1973
With Bob Baker in Hong Kong, Bruce Lee decides at the last moment to accept an invitation from his old school, St. Francis Xavier’s College, as a guest of honor for their Sports Day Awards Ceremony. He is genuienely happy to be reunited with the school's principle, Brother Gregory Seubert, and Brother Edward Muss, the teacher who recognized the teenage Lee's physical prowess early on and encouraged him to take part in 1958 Interschool Boxing Championships. Outside in the school's large courtyard, the pupils surge forward out of their seats to get closer to their idol on the stage as Lee hands out medals and trophies, he appears to be in good spirits and even playfully gives in to the crowd's request for him to strip off his shirt to display his muscular torso.
Afterwards, in a private moment with Brother Gregory, Lee reveals that he is carrying an ivory-plated .22 calibre Derringer - supplied by Baker - loaded with hollow point bullets for protection. Lee, every the pragmatist, was not going to take any chances if he needed to defend himself or his family - he had, after all, lived periously close to the Tate-LaBianca Murders in many respects.
An intruder had recently scaled the walls of his Cumberland Road home and challenged him to a fight while his children, Brandon and Shannon, were playing in the garden; Lee "gave him my all", and flattened the man with a side kick.

21 March, 1973
Without a comparable product to rival ENTER THE DRAGON's international ambitions, Run Run Shaw sends five of his best martial arts films to Warner Bros. Richard Ma, who selects 1972's KING BOXER, starring Lo Lieh, and retitles it as FIVE FINGERS OF DEATH, the first kung fu import to hit U.S. cinemas. It is an immediate hit with audiences who have been primed by the KUNG FU TV series, earning over $4 million at the box office.

24 March, 1973
ENTER THE DRAGON wraps production in Hong Kong, over budget and schedule, but Warner Bros. have been encouraged by the footage being sent back to invest more; even snagging MISSION IMPOSSIBLE composer, Lalo Schifrin, to compose the score. By the time ENTER THE DRAGON hits cinemas, it's final budget will top $850,000, and Raymond Chow, who had initially tried to scupper the deal, promotes the film heavily as a Golden Harvest co-production - never has he seen Lee in such fine, bristling form.
Chow's change of heart in trying to assume all the credit, angers Lee as much as the slow realization of profits from his share of THE WAY OF THE DRAGON, and he believes that his Concord Productions partner is cheating him out of the millions the film has already generated. But Chow is not the only one who has fallen foul of Lee's favour; producer Fred Weintraub, writer Michael Allin and even director, Robert Clouse, have all come under fire from Lee's demands for perfection.
It would be fair to say that no one on ENTER THE DRAGON has worked as hard as Lee, who has noticeably shed even more weight, and is so tautly wired over his Hollywood shot for stardom that he is barely sleeping and tackles the production zealously in front and behind the camera. He has also sustained injuries during the shoot, the last of which - a torn groin muscle - has prevented him finishing his scenes even as the Hollywood crew are departing Hong Kong.

30 March, 1973
While recovering from his groin injury, Lee continues to flirt with Run Run Shaw's continuous offers and spends a day at Shaw Bros. studios, undergoing period costume tests. Shaw's insulting initial offer aside, more and more, Lee is wondering if he perhaps got into business with the wrong person in Hong Kong as his disenchantment with Raymond Chow grows. It looks increasingly likely that once his current commitment with Golden Harvest has been fulfilled, Lee will sever his connections with Chow for good.

April 1973
National General Pictures, acquires the U.S. distribution rights for THE BIG BOSS and FIST OF FURY, and retitles the films as THE CHINESE CONNECTION and FISTS OF FURY, however these are carelessly mixed up during their release and THE BIG BOSS opens in the North American markets as "FISTS OF FURY". No matter, this dubbed version is an instant hit with kung fu crazy audiences and pulls in over $16 million by the end of 1973 - suddenly, Warner Bros. minor investment in Bruce Lee is beginning to look like a bargain.

08 April, 1973
Pablo Picasso, the most influential artist of the twentieth century, dies at his château in Mougins, France from a heart attack at the age of ninety-one.

14 April, 1973
Linda Lee writes to Bob Baker, thanking him and his wife, Beverly, in taking the risk for their last shipment of "C" and checking up on whether another has been sent, though she is quick to reassure he that he needn't "worry about Bruce using the "C" - he is not going overboard", as much as Baker is clearly worried by the increased frequency of these requests for "shipments".

15 April, 1973
Bruce Lee, with his own, small crew, completes his scenes over the course of two days for ENTER THE DRAGON before shipping them over to Warner Bros. in the U.S. The footage is the last he would ever film, including the opening bout with a young stuntman and choreographer, Sammon Hung, the true extent of the toll ENTER THE DRAGON has taken on him is apparent, he is rail-thin and is probably down to little more than a 110lbs.

18 April, 1973
With Bruce Lee's star rising, and the film capitals of the world taking notice, offers pour in for him and Hong Kong becomes the unlikely centre of a bidding war for its most famous star. James Coburn, who has not had a recognizable hit since 1967's IN LIKE FLINT, touches down on the British Crown Colony with 20th Century Fox's Head of Production, Elmo Williams. Lee was there personally to welcome them at Kai Tak Airport, and his stock in Hong Kong rose further still when he could apparently command not only a Hollywood star, but a studio head, to this corner of the world as well.
Williams began his career in Hollywood as a film editor and was a double Oscar-winner for 1947's DESIGN FOR DEATH and 1953's HIGH NOON. As a producer, he had famously fired director Akira Kurosawa from his bloated, 1970 World War II epic, TORA! TORA! TORA!, during it's tortuous four and a half years in production. He had recently signed Stirling Silliphant, who had failed to get Lee onboard for a resurrection of THE SILENT FLUTE, to a multi-picture deal with 20th Century Fox and was now in town With Coburn by his side to close the deal.
While Lee's ego might have been flattered, he had long harboured a grudge against Coburn for stepping back from THE SILENT FLUTE deal with Warner Bros. in 1971, when he was as good as penniless and reduced to having borrow money to live on from Bob Baker. His pride and self-esteem had taken a beating, and he told them quite bluntly that he was worth far more now - at least a $1 million - and would not take second billing to Coburn.

30 April, 1973
Bruce Lee takes out a second life insurance policy worth $1,350,000 with Lloyd's of London.

May 10, 1973
Bruce Lee spends a particularly steamy and humid day at Golden Harvest Studios' recording facilities in a dubbing session for ENTER THE DRAGON - it will be his the only one of his films to feature his actual voice. The air conditioning is switched off during the recording process, and in the early afternoon, Lee excuses himself to cool off. He is later found in on his hands and knees in the men's toilets, groggy and unsteady, but claims to be looking for his glasses. Lee makes it back to the dubbing room, but promptly collapses into unconsciousness, vomiting and appears to be in the midst of a seizure or an epileptic fit, bathed in sweat.
One of those present has the foresight to place a spoon between his teeth in case he bites his own tongue.
Raymond Chow is summoned and calls his doctor, who urges him to bring Lee into the nearby Baptist Hospital where he was about to finish his shift, and is transported there in Chow's car with the help of several of the studio workers. Lee continues to be having severe convulsions and difficulty in breathing, and when he is brought into the third floor emergency room, he is more dead than alive.
Thanks to the prompt action and diagnosis of Dr. Don Langford, who happens to be the personal physician to both Chow and the Lee family, and neurosurgeon, Dr. Peter Wu, they manage to stabilize Lee and bring him back to consciousness with an injection of Mannitol. He has suffered a cerebral oedema, or a swelling of the brain - at one point, he stopped breathing altogether. Lee's recovery is slow, at first he is unable to speak and when he does, it is slurred as though has suffered a stroke; he has trouble focusing his eyes, though he recognizes Linda at his bedside.
The staff at Baptist Hospital have fought for almost three hours to revive Lee back to this state; having to secure him to the treatment table because of his immense strength during his convulsions and seizures. Due to the lack of beds available, he is transferred to St. Teresa's Hospital for continued observation that evening, by which time he is able to talk lucidly, though his speech is somewhat manic, but otherwise appears to have made a full and steady recovery.
Lee will only admit to having chewed a cannabis leaf earlier, though the doctors suspect there is more to it than that and warn him from indulging further; he does not share with them his considerable, and increased, use of cocaine over these past months, which would allow them to pinpoint, or narrow, the exact cause that triggered the oedema.

14 May, 1973
Against the advice of his doctors, Bruce Lee discharges himself from St. Teresa's Hospital before a scheduled angiography to determine whether there has been any brain damage due to the oedema. The incident weighs heavily on Lee, but he proceeds to push ahead, preparing for the next phase of his career - the promotion and release of ENTER THE DRAGON, for which he has been booked on the top U.S. talk show with Johnny Carson, THE TONIGHT SHOW, in August. He also alerts his cinematographer, Tadashi Nishimoto, to prepare for a location shoot in South Korea for THE GAME OF DEATH, which he is still intent on completing even though he has yet still to finish a definitive shooting script.
He has had further plans ahead of him, a move back to the U.S. and to make two films per year - one in Hong Kong - plus there is his desire to get back into the martial arts proper, by opening a larger Jun Fan Gung Institute and having the world's best martial artists appear as quest instructors.
At his lowest point however, he confesses to Linda that he doesn't know how much longer he can carry on and doesn't believe he will live much longer.

29 May, 1973
Bruce Lee departs for Los Angeles with Linda, the trip had been planned months ago to catch up on the progress of ENTER THE DRAGON's post-production and meetings with Warner Bros. Lee takes advantage of their time in the U.S. to book himself for a full battery of tests at UCLA's Medical Center under the supervision of a neurologist, Dr. David Reisbord. The recommended angiography is not carried out, and neither does Lee insist on one; he is again not fully transparent with the details of his drug use, continuing only to admit to the occasional use of cannabis.
The cause of Lee's brain swelling remains an apparent mystery, and he is prescribed Dilantin - an anti-seizure commonly used to treat epilepsy - to be taken three times a day. Common side effects may include drowsiness, confusion, slurred speech, problems with balance, coordination, or muscle movement; it is also recommended that coming off the medication should be done on a gradual basis by slowly reducing the dosage.
Lee's near brush with death has tempered his optimism and positive attitude towards his future - he tells his ENTER THE DRAGON co-star, John Saxon, that maybe "there isn't going to be a Bruce Lee"; his mother, Grace, is shocked by his sickly appearance ("I couldn't believe the person in front of me was my son."); Bob Wall invites him to work out with him while he is in town, Lee uncharacteristically declines.

June 1973
THE CHINESE CONNECTION - or rather FIST OF FURY - is released in North America and tops the U.S. box office for that month; Bruce Lee's first two films perform particularly well with African-American audiences who identify with Lee's outsider persona in overcoming great odds.

08 June, 1973
Bruce Lee and Linda return to Hong Kong in far better spirits than when they left. Dr. Reisbord reports that physically, Lee has passed with flying colours; he has the body of an eighteen-year old and an ECG of his brain reveals no abnormalities in its functions. Still, Lee's withholding of the true extent of his drug use paints an inexact picture of the otherwise positive results, he is only fooling himself, and is convinced of his own invincibility, wasting no time in boasting that he possess the body of someone almost half his age. Dan inosanto attests to his power and strength when he performs a should push on him and knocks him down, though he too is shocked by his appearance. Lee jokes, "You almost lost your sifu."
Lee has also viewed a rough cut of ENTER THE DRAGON, he is overjoyed with the results, telling the director, Robetr Clouse, "We've got it."

28 June, 1973
Ted Ashley, eager to retain Bruce Lee for his next film with Warner Bros., offers Lee a "superstar salary" as reported by the Hong Kong press: a $100,000 a year for as long as either he or Linda lives from one of five scripts they are preparing for him. This is amidst the mountain of offers that he is being deluged with - MGM reportedly wants him for a film with Karate enthusiast, Elvis Presley; producer Carlo Ponti is interested in him starring alongside his wife, Sophia Loren; and Hungarian businessman, Andrew G. Vajna, then running a successful wig factory in Hong Kong, is eager to get in the movie business with Lee and is interested in producing the SOUTHERN FIST, NORTHERN LEG script.
Vanja would later be better known as the producer of the trilogy of Rambo films with Sylvester Stallone and working with the other action stars of era, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis.
Run Run Shaw, understanding the Bruce Lee is the key to getting the better of his rival, Raymond Chow, finally lures the star to his studio for a rumoured $500,000 for a single, one-off film, which Lee will complete before the year is out.

05 July, 1973
In a much publicized altercation at Golden Harvest Studios, Bruce Lee verbally assaults, and then physically threatens Lo Wei, in the presence of the director's wife, Lau Leung Wah, and Raymond Chow. Lo's ceaseless promotion in the press about being a "million dollar director", as though he were the reason for the success of Lee's first two films for Golden Harvest riled the volatile star enough, now the director was taking credit for teaching Lee how to fight!
Lee's infamous temper results in the police being called, and he agrees to sign what amounts to a rudimentary restraining order to leave Lo alone; Lee later regrets the whole incident, not for his actions, but for ostensibly apologising. Nor is his run-in with Lo an isolated incident by any means, Lee had recently also threatened the writer of an unflattering article about him at the publication's offices.
Later that same day, he is booked to appear on TVB's ENJOY YOURSELF TONIGHT, where he has always been favourably received and promoted from his first appearance onwards. His appearance is a disaster, in reliving the events with Lo, Lee launches into a scathing tirade then appears to be heavy-handed with the host when demonstrating his power - even though it had been rehearsed and agreed between them.
The next day, Lee is attacked in the press as a "bully".

15 July, 1973
Former 007, George Lazenby arrives in Hong Kong looking for film work - he had famously walked away from the James Bond franchise after a single outing in 1969's ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE, on the advice of a friend - in dire financial straits. Following a brief meeting at Golden Harvest Studios, Bruce Lee orders Raymond Chow to sign Lazenby up for $10,000, who he will write into THE GAME OF DEATH.

20 July, 1973
Bruce Lee is pronounced dead at Kowloon's Queen Elizabeth Hospital, at 23:30, he is thirty-two years old; Raymond Chow tells the throng of reporters, "He's gone." A devastated Linda Lee is seen being comforted by Chow's wife, in-laws and friends. The story that emerges from Chow is that Lee collapsed on the grounds of his Kowloon Tong home, with his wife at his side; both Linda and Lee's older brother, Robert, corroborate Chow's version of that evening's tragic events. There is even a certain, superficial and terrible logic to his passing - a recurrence of the same mysterious ailment, cerebal oedema, that had struck him down on the 10th May.
He had been behaving erratically, seemed irritated and forgetful, and complained of headaches.
Hong Kong film critic, Mel Tobias - like many in the press and a shocked populace, cannot accept the sudden demise of their Number One Son; a cultural and literal superman - uncovers the ambulance logs which reveal that Lee was actually transported from Betty Ting Pei's Beacon Hill Road apartment in Kowloon Tong. Chow, rather than recant his earlier statement, simply denies he ever said it and "disappears", Linda and Lee's immediate family, similarly, are unavailable for comment. Ting Pei is left to face a swarming press and angry public on her own and continues to assert that she was not at home that evening, hadn't seen Lee for weeks and that he must have been visiting someone else who lived in her building.
It is reported, though never further substantiated or investigated, that a straw and several packets of "white powder" are found among Lee's possesions when he is brought in to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital.

25 July, 1973
An estimated 25,000 people line the streets of Kowloon for Bruce Lee's funeral service, all the A-list of Hong Kong's entertainment world turn out to bid him farewell and bow before his widow and young children. When the casket is opened at the end of the ceremony for his family and friends to pay their respects, many are visibly shaken, and some cannot bear to gaze into the bronze coffin.
Raymond Chow has a film crew present to capture these moments, and will have them follow Linda, Brandon and Shannon back to the U.S. where Lee is to be buried. Chow, never one to shy away from a quick profit for next-to-nothing, will make nefarious use of this footage in the future; and following Lee's death five days earlier, Chow had frozen Lee's $4,000 monthly allowance without even informing Linda.

26 July, 1973
As the controversy, conspiracies and rumours continue to swirl around Bruce Lee's death, Linda and the children leave Hong Kong with Lee's body, the airline tickets which were originally sent to the family for Lee's appearance on Johnny Carson's THE TONIGHT SHOW in August, are traded in for the flight to Seattle. It is unusual for a body to be released so quickly when the results of the autopsy have yet to be concluded, let alone be allowed to leave the country for burial.

31 July, 1973
In the U.S., Bruce Lee's funeral and burial is an august affair, free from the hysteria and mayhem of the one in Hong Kong, it is no doubt helped by the fact that Lee is still little known there. He is buried at Lakeview Cemetery in Seattle, the city and time in his life when Linda believes he was at his happiest. Lee's mother, Grace, has to be led away from the coffin, distraught with grief. His younger brother, Robert, is one of the pall bearers along with Taky Kimura, Dan Inosanto, Steve McQueen, James Coburn and Peter Chin - one of the last students that Lee personally certified.
Outside of his family and relatives in the U.S. to attend, were his family of students from all three of his Jun Fan Gung Fu Institutes, including his first student, Jesse Glover, who it is said, stayed behind to help fill in friend's grave. McQueen, well known for never attending funerals or allowing his inner feelings to be exposed in public, made an exception for Lee, a testament to the depth of their friendship, which largely remains a mystery to this day.

19 August, 1973
ENTER THE DRAGON opens in just four cinemas in New York, before its wider release throughout the U.S., topping the box office chart for two weeks, and grossing £25 million by the end of it's initial release. Bruce Lee, who had yearned to be a bigger star than Steve McQueen, would have had the satisfaction of knowing that McQueen's 1972 THE GETAWAY, released in December, grossed just under $19 million by the end of 1973.

03 September, 1973
With Bruce Lee having now achieved his "worldwide fame" with the release of ENTER THE DRAGON, the unabated and worrying, sinister rumours surrounding Lee's death continues to haunt the British Crown Colony. The Hong Kong Government responds by holding a public inquest in an effort to put the whole matter to rest. The establishing of the timeline of the true events of the 20th of July, rely on the testimonies of Linda Lee, Raymond Chow, Betty Ting Pei, and her physician Dr. Eugene Chu Poh Hwye, who was called to her Beacon Hill Road apartment that night when Lee was found to be unresponsive by Chow and Ting Pei.
Hong Kong is in an uproar upon the revelation that traces of cannabis were found in Lee's stomach, although in the interests of his pending insurance policy payouts, Linda asserts that Lee only took cannabis "occasionally" and that she was only aware of her husband doing so in "March or April 1973". The autopsy and the testing of samples from Lee's body not only reveals the presence of the prescription painkiller, Equagesic, that Ting Pei confirms she had given to him for his headache, before Lee lay down in her bedroom to rest; but the absence of the anti-seizure, Dilantin, that Lee had been prescribed by Dr. Reisbord in the U.S.
It appears that the tests, some of which were carried out a month after Lee's death on degraded samples, were not directed at finding other substances, such as cocaine, which is snorted rather than consumed and would not be found in the contents of his stomach.

24 September, 1973
The six days of the inquest, carried out over a period of three weeks, concludes with the lead coroner, C. K. Edbert Tung, ruling the case as "death by misadventure" due to Bruce Lee's hypersensitivity to either of the two main ingredients of Ting Pei's prescription of Equagesic - aspirin or the muscle relaxant, meprobamate. The three-person jury took twelve minutes to reach the verdict that would satisfy no one but the authorities and those with financial interests in Lee's estate; Linda Lee would perjure herself again in her depositions with the two insurances companies, American International Assurance and Lloyd's of London, regarding Lee's drug use and eventually settled on a portion of their full policy value.

24 October, 1973
ENTER THE DRAGON is released in Hong Kong, and grosses HK$3.3 million - almost half of Bruce Lee's last film, THE WAY OF THE DRAGON - and is viewed as a "failure". Local audiences didn't appreciate Hollywood's misappropriation and interpretation of their homegrown and much-beloved genre; and then there was Lee's tainted image following the "truth" of his death and where he had died.
ENTER THE DRAGON would go on to have a worldwide, lifetime theatrical gross of over $400 million; an incredible return on its cost-to-profit ratio.

In 1969, Lee had set out his aspirations in a memo to himself, "My Chief Definite Aim", and had without a doubt exceeded the goals he had set for himself. But beyond the mere material wealth; what of the price it had extracted in return - was the self-actualization really worth the toll it took on him, or on those whom he cared about the most?

sources : Bruce Lee: King Of Kung-Fu (1974 Wildwood House Ltd.) Felix Dennis, Don Atyeo | Bruce Lee Memorial (1974 Rainbow Publications Inc.) | Jun Fan Gung Fu: Origins And Evolution (2023 Independently Published) Ryan Ohl | Bruce Lee: The Nearly Man (2020 Independently Published) Martin Schell | Bruce Lee: Letters Of The Dragon (2016 Tuttle Publishing) Bruce Lee, John Little | A Guide To Martial Arts Training With Equipment (1980 Know How Publishing Co.) Dan Inosanto | Jeet Kune Do: The Art & Philosophy Of Bruce Lee (1994 Know Now Publishing) Dan Inosanto | The Legendary Bruce Lee (1986 Ohara Publications Inc.) Black Belt Magazine | The Making Of Enter The Dragon (1987 Unique Publications) Robert Clouse | The Death Of Bruce Lee (2022 T&B Editores / El Autor) Marcos Ocaña Rizo | Who Killed Bruce Lee (1978 H. Bunch Associates Ltd.) Editors Of Kung-Fu Monthly | Combat Magazine (Martial Art Publications) | Inside Kung-Fu Magazine (Cfw Enterprises Inc.) | Karate International (Dojo Publishing Ltd.) | Kung-Fu Monthly (H. Bunch Associates Ltd.) | Martial Arts Illustrated (Martial Arts Ltd.) | The Hong Kong Film Archive (Sai Wan Ho, Hong Kong) | Bruce Lee Filmography (HKMDB & MyDramaList) | Bloodyelbow.Com | BruceLeeWasHere.com | Bruce Lee Lives! Forum