A NUMBER ONE SON

21 January, 1965
Ed Parker student, karate enthusiast and hairdresser to the stars, Jay Sebring, is summoned to a 20th Century Fox studios to screen the 8mm film that Ed Parker had taken of Bruce Lee at the Long Beach International Karate Championships. Sebring, who was a student of Parker’s and the hairdresser to Hollywood A-listers, had also been in the audience that sweltering August, and was won over enough by what he’d seen to recommend Lee to one of his clients, producer William Dozier.
Dozier had been bemoaning the fact that he was unable to find a Chinese lead in all of Hollywood with the charisma and acting chops he needed for a TV series based on Earl Den Biggers’ popular creation, the detective “Charlie Chan”.

01 February, 1965
Lee Kwok Ho 李國豪, "Brandon", is born in East Oakland, Alameda in California to Bruce and Linda Lee - Lee proudly proclaims at every opportunity that his son is the only "blonde, grey-eyed Chinaman”.

04 February, 1965
Bruce Lee is flown down to Los Angeles by William Dozier for a screentest, after having viewed the Long Beach footage of him, he is convinced he has found his leading man. Lee will play Charlie Chan's son, "Lee Chan", in NUMBER ONE SON, out to avenge his father's murder - it is heavily influenced by the incredible success of the first three James Bond films starring Sean Connery.
Lee is met at Los Angeles International Airport and driven over to the studio by Jay Sebring, who has been intrigued enough by to run the errand for Dozier. The pair of them hit it off right away and become fast friends. Sebring looks the epitome of Hollywood cool, he is young and handsome, an unmitigated sucess in his own field, drives a flashy Shelby Cobra muscle car and was currently dating model-turned-actress, Sharon Tate. The impressionable Lee has already been seduced by what Hollywood has the potential to offer by the time he flies back to Oakland the next day to await word from Dozier.

07 February, 1965
Lee Hoi Chuen, Bruce Lee's father, passes away unexepctedly in Hong Kong - although he had managed to wean himself off opium in the last several years, a lifetime of its use had taken its toll on him. He was also a heavy cigarette smoker. Lee immediately makes plans to fly back to Hong Kong for the traditional period of mourning before the funeral itself is to take place.

15 February, 1965
As the last sibling to arrive in order to pay his respects, Bruce Lee crawls on his hands and knees at the Kowloon funeral home, weeping uncontrollably, and begging forgiveness from his father and their ancestors.

21 February, 1965
Activist Malcolm X is assassinated while giving a speech at the Audubon Ballroom in Washington Heights, New York.

06 March, 1965
Bruce Lee returns to Seattle, where Linda and Brandon have been staying during his absence in Hong Kong - although relations with his in-laws have softened - and would improve throughout the years to come - Lee's apparent lack of prospects with the ambitions they could not comprehend, was a constant source of tension. They returned to Oakland and the James Yimm Lee household eight days later.
Months after his clash with Wong Jack Man, Lee is still obsessing over the fight - his letters from Hong Kong to Taky Kimura, James Yimm Lee and even William Cheung in Australia, are littered with references over the outcome, Wong himself, whom he refers to as "the Runner", and his disillusionment with the Wing Chun foundations his "scientific street fighting" - namely, Jun Fan Gung Fu itself - has been built upon.
Lee's apparent over-reaction to a fight that he "won" - albeit in a clumsy and less than efficient manner - propels him to double, perhaps even triple. his already all-consuming efforts in analysing, researching and working out. Physically, he hurls himself into improving his cardiovascular stamina – skipping rope, clocking up miles on a stationary bike and running. In short, Lee begins training like a professional boxer rather than just a martial artist on techniques; and in his "cross-training", he is decades ahead of his time in anticipating how the combative sports were to evolve.

22 April, 1965
William Dozier sends Bruce Lee "a presentation of NUMBER ONE SON", and recommends that Lee sign with an agent to represent him - William Belasco of Progressive Management Agency - and shortly after, Lee receives an $1,800 retainer from Dozier and his Greenway Productions, Inc.

08 May, 1965
With pre-production and a read-through of Lorenzo Semple Jr.'s pilot script for NUMBER ONE SON scheduled for the summer, Bruce Lee returns to Hong Kong again with Linda and Brandon, eager to introduce them to his family now that he had the means to afford to do so with the sudden windfall of Dozier's retainer.
Unbeknownst to Lee, however, was how resistant American TV networks were to order a mainstream series starring an unknown Chinese martial artist and actor in a lead role – Dozier, even by this stage, was more certain than ever of Lee’s star potential just as he was that NUMBER ONE SON was in a perilous stage of development. 20th Century Fox, whom Dozier's Greenway Productions had a deal with, had recently acquired the film and TV rights for "Batman" and were far more enthusiastic about its prospects.

11 August, 1965
The Watts Riots break out in the predominant African-American Californian neighbourhood lasting six destructive, violent days.

10 September, 1965
Charlie Woo, so widely liked by all who knew him, is tragically killed in a horse riding accident in Renton, an inner city suburb of Seattle.

17 September, 1965
The Lees depart Hong Kong and return once more to Seattle, where they plan on staying with Linda's parents for an indeterminate length of time, while Bruce Lee again is left to ponder about not only his own future, but also that of his young family.
While they were still in Hong Kong, Lee had been informed by William Dozier that NUMBER ONE SON had been cancelled in mid-development in favour of BATMAN, which was now rushing into production for it’s 1966 premiere. Dozier, however, was keen to assure Lee that he was preparing a new project with him in mind, something called “The Green Hornet”.
But Lee's time has not only been preoccupied with his acting career, he is overflowing with ideas and concepts for the development of Jun Fan Gung Fu and the direction he wanted to take it. His detailed letters from Hong Kong to his senior instructors, Taky Kimura and James Yimm Lee are unceasing - filled with his dynamic illustrations when words are beyond him.

December 1965
Bruce Lee and his family relocate again to Oakland and James Yimm Lee. With his finances in a perilous state, Lee closes the Jun Fan Gung Fu Institute on 4157 Broadway in Oakland’s Chinatown and moves the classes to James’ garage gym.

12 January, 1966
BATMAN debuts on the ABC television network and is an instant record-breaking ratings winner. William Dozier and head writer, Lorenzo Semple Jr., infuses the series with bright primary colours, outlandish villians and high camp to maximise its appeal to a broad demographic. The unforgettable and infectious theme tune was written and composed by David McCallum and Neal Hefti.
BATMAN's success give Dozier the clout to mount a second production based on another pulp action hero, the Green Hornet - the 1936 creation of George W. Trendle and Fran Striker - Lee is offered the role of the hero's sidekick, "Kato".

March 1966
Bruce Lee moves his family to their very own first home since his marriage to Linda, a small one-bedroom apartment at 10976 Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles, where he will begin work on THE GREEN HORNET. The job is a welcome respite from his financial difficulties of late, offering a respectable and regular monthly salary of over $1,200 - more money than Lee had ever seen in all his earning years in the U.S. teaching martial arts.
William Dozier also signs Lee up for his first formal acting lessons with the noted drama coach, Jeff Corey.

20 April, 1966
Bruce Lee, acting on a tip from BATMAN's "Robin", Burt Ward, moves to the luxurious Barrington Plaza apartments in little over a month after arriving in L.A. The trio of towers, at 11740 Wilshire Boulevard - just a few blocks from his first address – is way beyond his means; but Lee manages to negotiate a reduced rent on a 23rd floor, large two-bedroom apartment, in exchange for martial arts lessons with for the building manager.
He also purchases a new car, with the help of Linda’s parents, a Chevy Nova Super Sport.

30 April, 1966
Bruce Lee’s contract is finalized with 20th Century Fox for THE GREEN HORNET series for ABC Television, filming is due to commence for the thirty half-hour episode season in early summer.
Not understanding his place in the Hollywood ecosystem, Lee attempts to involve himself in the creative decisions but is politely turned down by William Dozier. Even Lee' drama coach, Jeff Corey, who has gone through the first few scripts with him, doesn't think much of the role that has few lines and appears to amount to that of a glorified extra.

16 May, 1966
Mao Zedong launches the Cultural Revolution, a sociopolitical movement in the People's Republic of China, purging the last remaining vestiges of capitalist and traditional elements from Chinese society. The population of Hong Kong swells once more as thousands escape persecution from the cultural, economic and historical destruction of China.

May 25, 1966
Despite his filming commitments, by no means had Bruce Lee let up on his primary pursuit of martial arts excellence – his personal training was a seven-days a week regime, supplemented only with more martial arts-related study and his growing library of books which was to grow to well over 2,500 volumes. Lee would read up on any subject that interested him, but particularly those that could be applied to the martial arts, however tangentially.
His friendship with Jay Sebring and his A-list contacts, would serve as a template for the business model for his professional martial arts career as a guru to the stars; he began compiling a mental list of potential students to target. Not among them was one of the other Barrington Plaza’s residents and fellow worker at Greenway Productions, Burt Ward, who got a taste of Lee’s demanding art and lasted just a single lesson at $25 an hour.
Ward would later claim to be a karate black belt; although his crimefighting partner, “Batman” himself, Adam West, who also lived at the development, showed little interest in exploring what Lee had to offer.

06 June, 1966
Bruce Lee reports to the 20th Century Fox studio lot, based in the Century City area of Los Angeles, to begin filming for THE GREEN HORNET.

July 1966
Bruce Lee, in a pattern of behaviour he would repeat for the rest of his life, embarks on a brief affair with actress, Thordis Brandt, until she discovers that Lee - who never wore a wedding ring - was married. Brandt appeared in THE GREEN HORNET episode, "The Frog Is A Deadly Weapon", and said of him: "He had a magnetism that was indescribable. Bruce was very quiet and shy but could be very aggressive if he wanted to be. He was a show-off and always wanted to flaunt his body.”

09 September, 1966
Unlike BATMAN, THE GREEN HORNET's debut on the ABC television network is not an immediate ratings winner, nor did its audience build but rather plummeted throughout its season run. The comic camp tone set by BATMAN was intended to be replicated, but at creator George W. Trendle’s insistence, THE GREEN HORNET was played straight as a serious, almost neo-noir, crime drama. Producer William Dozier was proved correct when he predicted that the less than half-hour episode’s running time – with commercials - would work against such a format.
Bruce Lee’s Kato, however, was the show’s only highlight when he was allowed to be featured prominently in his brief fight scenes and allowed to play the role as more of a “partner” to the Green Hornet, rather than as just his “sidekick”. It was change to the role that Lee had lobbied Dozier for, and which the show’s star, Van Williams, had unselfishly supported.

15 October, 1966
The Black Panther Party - an American Marxist–Leninist and black power political organization - is founded by college students Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, and Elbert Howard in Oakland, California.

28 October, 1966
Bruce Lee submits a thirteen-page plot synopsis for an episode of THE GREEN HORNET to William Dozier, but his proposed storyline for “The Cobra From The East" is never used.

18 November, 1966
The broadcast of THE GREEN HORNET episode, "The Preying Mantis", for which Lee had more creative input and featured his student, Dan Inosanto, doubling for actor Mako, as Kato's opponent, "Low Sing".
Lee's salary is also bumped up to $2,200 per month, although it still only represents a quarter of what Van Williams was being paid, it still represented a level of financial security that the Lee family had never known before.

Over the course of their student-teacher relationship, Bruce Lee and Dan Inosanto had become firm friends and his move to Los Angeles meant that they saw each other now in a regular basis. Lee had been holding court in the backroom of a Chinatown pharmacy, and teaching informal classes to Inosanto, Tony Hum and the owner of the premises, Wayne Chan. And that was not all, Lee had been developing ideas and shaping concepts for a revolutionary approach to his "scientific street fighting" that went even beyond the imaginings of James Yimm Lee's appetite for innovation...

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 | Chinese Gung-Fu: The Philosophical Art Of Self-Defense (1963 Oriental Book Sales) Bruce Lee | Bruce Lee: The Nearly Man (2020 Independently Published) Martin Schell | Bruce Lee: Letters Of The Dragon (2016 Tuttle Publishing) Bruce Lee, John Little | Striking Distance (2016 University Of Nebraska Press) Charles Russo | 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 | Tao Of Jeet Kune Do (1975 Ohara Publications Inc.) Bruce Lee | 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