Editor's Note: This week, we will be publishing excerpts from The Bruce Lee Code (Career Press), a new book from TheStreet writer/editor Thomas Lee. The book examines how Lee's life and words can inspire entrepreneurs and career-minded professionals. The Bruce Lee Code, which launches April 3, is available to purchase here.
Like all great entrepreneurs, we can’t examine Bruce Lee’s successes without examining his failures. And we can’t examine his failures without examining the deep-rooted institutional racism that permeated Hollywood at the time. Only then can we fully understand and appreciate Lee’s unlikely emergence as a global movie superstar.
As his friend Doug Palmer tells us: “He was able to make his way against headwinds in Hollywood where Asian actors were not particularly esteemed. I think that struck a chord with a lot of people: his ability to prevail over all kinds of odds.”
In 1964, Lee attended a karate tournament in Long Beach, California, where he demonstrated several moves, including his famous one-inch punch and two-finger pushups. Hollywood television producer William Dozier caught wind of Lee’s electric performances and cast the young martial artist in The Green Hornet as Kato, the sidekick to the show’s eponymous hero.
Dozier was looking for a show that could exploit the popularity of the Batman television series. Just as Bruce Wayne was a billionaire playboy during the day, but a vigilante hero at night, The Green Hornet featured Britt Reid as a wealthy newspaper publisher who transformed into a masked hero at night.
But the series’ real star was Reid’s sidekick Kato, played by Lee, who introduced millions of Americans to kung fu. If Batman’s gimmick was his gadgets and cars, the Green Hornet’s was Lee’s martial arts skills. His lightning-fast moves, which the cameras had trouble catching, electrified audiences, although critics were less receptive.
For Asian-Americans, however, Lee’s role gave them their first opportunity to watch someone who looked like them playing the role of a strong and powerful character on a major television show.
Hollywood struggles
The character’s popularity was hardly enough for Lee, however. He wanted to grow and expand as an actor. And to do that, he needed speaking lines. Unfortunately, Dozier and the writers gave him precious few, even though Kato was by far the best thing about The Green Hornet.
When the series was canceled after only one season, Dozier wrote, in a condescending, racist-tinged letter to Lee: “Confucious say: Green Hornet buzz no more.”
Unfortunately for Lee, the worst was yet to come. After The Green Hornet ended, Lee struggled to find work in Hollywood. He was offered bit parts, but nothing approaching the leading roles he believed he was destined to play.
Taking control
In Hong Kong, Lee took a more active role in making The Big Boss and Fist of Fury, often to the annoyance of director Lo Wei. He not only starred in the films, but also choreographed the fight scenes and offered plenty of notes on the scripts. The box office success of both films gave him the confidence to start Concord Production with Raymond Chow.
Wife Linda Lee Cadwell describes it as a “time of decision”:
“He had to decide about his personal statement in regard to kung fu films. He was never satisfied to ride along on success,” she said. “Each film, he believed, would have to be better than its predecessor. And he felt the only way he could achieve this was if he had more control over all of the elements.”
Today, all Hollywood A-listers have production studios. But it was pretty rare in the 1970s. And Lee was the one of the first, if not the first, person of color to do so. Concord Production not only allowed Lee and Chow creative and financial control over their projects, it also gave them the necessary mechanism to negotiate with Warner Brothers for Enter the Dragon, Lee’s greatest film, on a more equal basis.
