Writes Elizabeth M. Gillespie, dozens of people stopped by Bruce Lee's grave, Lake View Cemetery in Seattle, on Sunday July 20, paying their respects to the kung fu legend 30 years after his death. Fresh bouquets of carnations, sunflowers and roses surrounded the grave on Sunday. Several sticks of incense burned nearby
Bruce Lee, born in San Francisco in 1940, grew up in Hong Kong, then returned to the United States when he was 18. He lived in Seattle for 4-1/2 years in the early 1960s. He worked as a bus boy at a restaurant owned by Ruby Chow, a leader in the local Chinese American community. Lee opened his first kung fu studio while studying philosophy at the University of Washington. He fell in love with one of his students, Linda Emery. They married in 1964.
Lee first became known to U.S. audiences as Kato, a sidekick in the 1960s television series, The Green Hornet. He acted in a series of Hong Kong films in the early 1970s, which made him a star in Asia, then Europe and eventually the United State, reports Gillespie. His Hollywood debut came in 1973 with Enter the Dragon, a box office success he never lived to see. He died of cerebral edema -- swelling of the brain -- on July 20, 1973, in Hong Kong, a month before the film hit U.S. theaters. He was 32.. (Source: The Associate Press; AsianWeek, July 25-31, 2003).