orig. Lee Yuen Kam
born Nov. 27, 1940, San Francisco, Calif., U.S.
died July 20, 1973, Hong Kong
U.S. film actor.
The son of a touring Chinese opera star, he spent his childhood in Hong Kong, where he acted in several movies. He returned to the U.S., and in 1966 he landed a role in the television series The Green Hornet . In the early 1970s he became a popular star of martial-arts action films, including Fist of Fury (1972) ) and Enter the Dragon (1973), which gained an international cult following. His career was cut short by his sudden death at 33 from a brain edema suffered after taking a pain killer. Nevertheless, his films remained popular and became widely imitated. His son Brandon Lee (196593) was emerging as an action-movie star when he died in a shooting accident on a movie set.