Facts You Don’t Know About Bruce Lee

By Shefali Shrivastava on November 27, 2016 at 2:45 PM

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Bruce Lee was a Hong Kong American actor, martial artist, philosopher, filmaker and founder or the martial art Jeet Kune Do. Unless you were born yesterday or have been living under a rock, you will likely know of Bruce Lee and his extraordinary exploits. He was a master Kung Fu practitioner and is still widely regarded as the best martial artist of all time. Sadly, he only lived to be 32, after dying from an allergic reaction to the painkiller “Equagesic” in 1973. However, during his short time on Earth, he created an immortal legend.

His real name was Lee Jun-fan. He was born on November 27 1940 and died at July 20 1973. According to the Chinese zodiac, Lee was born in both the hour and the year of the Dragon, which according to tradition is a strong and fortuitous omen. Bruce’s father, Lee Hoi-chuen was Han Chinese, and his mother, Grace Ho was of half-Chinese and half-Caucasian descent. Bruce was the fourth child of five children: Phoebe Lee, Agnes Lee, Peter Lee and Robert Lee.
Bruce Lee had the ability to replace a dime on someone’s palm with a penny before they could close it. The picture below shows Bruce Lee performing the “Dragon Flag“. A position he could reportedly hold for more than 30 minutes.
Film directors had to shoot Bruce Lee’s fight scenes at 32 frames per second instead of the usual 24 because he was so fast and to make them seem more realistic!
It was determined that Bruce Lee’s speed to react and punch from a distance of three feet away was five hundredths of a second.
Bruce Lee once kicked a man so hard he broke the arm of the person behind him as he fell into him. He came to America to escape the Chinese mob. He had an unstoppable punch. His martial arts students included Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Steve McQueen and James Coburn. Lee even won the 1958 Hong Kong Cha Cha championship. Here’s some rare footage of the martial arts master doing the Cha-Cha here, if you’re into that kind of thing.

A Bruce Lee statue was unveiled in Los Angeles’ Chinatown on June 15, 2013. It stands at 7-foot (210 cm) tall and was made in Guangzhou, China.
In April 2014, it was announced that Lee would be a featured character in the video game EA Sports UFC, and will be playable in multiple weight classes. Bruce Lee was voted as the Greatest Movie Fighter Ever in 2014 by the Houston Boxing Hall Of Fame. The HBHOF is a combat sports voting body composed exclusively of current and former fighters and Martial Artists.