Done with Bruce Lee after reading "Drug Letters"

[dionbrother]

The difference between Bruce and these rock stars like Freddie Mercury is Bruce was a tough guy.  Tough guys are the worst possible drug users because they don't think drugs can kill them.  For a comparison, look at the life of peplum actor Dan Vadis.  American actors who worked with him in peplums(like Walter Barnes and Brad Harris) said he was the best athlete in the film biz.  Vadis was a 6'4 bodybuilding, karate black belt who was the toughest guy around.  He also used and smuggled drugs.  Stepped on a rainbow at age 49 thanks to a cocktail of heroin and ethanol.  You can spot him playing a biker in those Clint Eastwood and the ape movies, and Chief Big Eagle in BRONCO BILLY.  Clint liked him.

Bruce was overtraining and doing coke.  The way John Little spins this nonsense is really offensive.  Especially considering how Little also promotes Mike Mentzer's HIT methods which are counter to Bruuuuuce's overtraining. Rather unethical, me thinks.

[PandaPawPaw]

Ohhh yeah that's the good stuff! Wataaaah!

[Cognoscente]

On 9/21/2022 at 12:32 PM, Killer Meteor said:

I wonder if Bruce hadn't died, Jackie would have stayed with Golden Harvest as a stuntman/supporting player for longer. He seems to abruptly leave them at the end of '73.

I've been re-reading Jackie's two memoirs to find out when and why he really left Golden Harvest in 1973. I've found one little clue that pertains to a possible collaboration between Angela Mao, Sammo Hung and Huang Feng*. In Chapter 7 of Never Grow Up, Jackie said: "When I was a nobody, I often got cursed at on set. Once, I was supposed to stand next to the female lead. My hair was long at the time, and when I hit my mark, I unconsciously flicked my hair. The director yelled cut and came over to scream at me, cursing my family back eight generations. I was stunned and ran off in tears. All the other martial artists laughed at me for crying."

"My shame turned into rage. I grabbed a wooden prop knife and was about to rush over to hack at the director - You can scold me, but why did you have to bring my mom into this? Sammo Hung, who was working on this picture, grabbed me - Are you crazy? Don't do that! The next day, I quit. After that experience, I would never use foul language at anyone on my set, and I make sure no one else on my team does either."

Bearing in mind that Jackie can only be seen in two movies directed by Huang Feng: Hapkido (1972) and The Himalayan (1976). Also, Enter the Dragon was one of the final movies that Jackie did for Golden Harvest in 1973. The other one being Lo Wei's None But the Brave (released in May 1973).

* When Taekwondo Strikes (released in September 1973). It can't have been The Tournament (released in September 1974). In a book titled Golden Harvest: Leading Change in Changing Times, it was mentioned that the latter began filming in May 1974, and was completed in July of that year. Jackie would have been in Australia during that time.

[AlexanderFu]

Ugh, neverrmind.  

Edited September 23, 2022 by AlexanderFu

[DragonClaws]

On 9/21/2022 at 6:31 PM, dionbrother said:

The way John Little spins this nonsense is really offensive.  Especially considering how Little also promotes Mike Mentzer's HIT methods which are counter to Bruuuuuce's overtraining. Rather unethical, me thinks.

 

HIT was created by Arthur Jones, one of his former trainess Mike Mentzer then took it in his own direction and added some of his own ideas. Like Jeet Kune Do, there are not so man different versions. With added 'I' H,I,I,T to make it sound a bit new, but its still the same idea/approach.

[dionbrother]

5 hours ago, DragonClaws said:

 

HIT was created by Arthur Jones, one of his former trainess Mike Mentzer then took it in his own direction and added some of his own ideas. Like Jeet Kune Do, there are not so man different versions. With added 'I' H,I,I,T to make it sound a bit new, but its still the same idea/approach.

Little also touted Arthur Jones methods and was running a personal training Nautilus gym out of his home a decade ago.  Jones' system is one I agree with and believe would still work for most people.  Hate that the Nautilus machines have vanished from my local gyms.  As with Mentzer's modifications, it is the complete opposite of the overtraining approach that Little promotes in his Bruuuuuce training articles.

 

[Cognoscente]

I'm reminded of Bruce Lee fan/actor Gary Daniels. In a 1998 issue of Martial Arts Illustrated, he admitted to overtraining with weights in his early years. He thought that he had to be tired every time he left the gym.

[dionbrother]

3 hours ago, Cognoscente said:

I'm reminded of Bruce Lee fan/actor Gary Daniels. In a 1998 issue of Martial Arts Illustrated, he admitted to overtraining with weights in his early years. He thought that he had to be tired every time he left the gym.

Lot of those guys were using the bodybuilding magazines or Arnold's Encyclopedia for advice.  And it was very bad advice.

[DragonClaws]

On 9/25/2022 at 9:55 AM, dionbrother said:

As with Mentzer's modifications, it is the complete opposite of the overtraining approach that Little promotes in his Bruuuuuce training articles.

 

Little pointed this out in a Pod-Cast, and said that some of Bruce Lee later workouts were actually closer to Jones approach.

 

On 9/25/2022 at 9:55 AM, dionbrother said:

Little also touted Arthur Jones methods and was running a personal training Nautilus gym out of his home a decade ago.  Jones' system is one I agree with and believe would still work for most people.  Hate that the Nautilus machines have vanished from my local gyms.

 

It is a shame they have disapeared, I went to one gym where they had stripped apart the double chest and sold it as scrap. My Dad and his training partner, were two of the first men to use Nautilus in the U.K. His partner met and talked to Mike Mentzer a couple of times.

 

[Coliseum1972]

the hero image thing started in '71 , just look at the BB movie poster : THAT is when they tried to turn BL into a hero similar to 007 , unstoppable/force of nature......as Elvis said "image vs reality" 

 

Edited November 13, 2022 by Coliseum1972

[Jesse Smooth]

On 9/25/2022 at 2:14 PM, dionbrother said:

Lot of those guys were using the bodybuilding magazines or Arnold's Encyclopedia for advice.  And it was very bad advice.

I have to dig that M&F issue about Sly and THE EXPENDABLES where the emphasis is bigger is better.

[PandaPawPaw]

1 hour ago, Jesse Smooth said:

I have to dig that M&F issue about Sly and THE EXPENDABLES where the emphasis is bigger is better.

 

[DragonClaws]

On 2/1/2023 at 3:36 AM, Jesse Smooth said:

I have to dig that M&F issue about Sly and THE EXPENDABLES where the emphasis is bigger is better.

 

Thats always been the emphasis of those magazines, however, the same magzine will often features Bruce Lee or Frank Zane on the cover, so go figure. Those magazines are not always the best source of information on the subjects they are covering, there better for inspiration. Muscle & Fitness when I first bought it, used to lean more towards The Men Health type look, its probably changed hands a lot since then.

Edited February 12, 2023 by DragonClaws

[sifu iron perm]

Shock thread post of 2022!!!!

[AlexanderFu]

I always admired Bruce, but this thread makes me absolutely love him that much more.

Some people must live truly flawless lives to judge someone like this. The horror! 

[Brucemee]

On 9/10/2022 at 3:07 AM, shukocarl1441996347 said:

I've finally started to cut my ties with following Bruce Lee after 48 (!) years of being a fan. I just sold my Blu Ray set on eBay and will be starting to list my collection over the coming days 

(Way of the Dragon related stuff and really old collectibles). I've felt this way since the Bob Baker letters were published and it's time to go. This is tough for me but it's what I feel.

I can relate to the way you feel, to some degree. I, too, am a long time fan (not quite 45 years) & my initial reaction to hearing about the "Bruce Lee drug letters" (thank you, Kung Fu Genius) was "ouch!", this isn't really something I wanted to learn about my long-time idol. Part of me wanted to keep believing that the image we'd been fed of Bruce Lee was the truth, that Bruce really had been a martial arts hero, almost superhuman. But, as Elvis Presley once (to his credit) told a reporter, "The image is one thing, the person is another".

There are at least a couple reasons, however, that I can still allow myself to be a Bruce Lee fan. One, the bad/negative aspects of Bruce Lee were not by any means all there were to him or his character. Do (or did) guys like Dan Inosanto, Taky Kimura, Richard Bustillo, Ed Parker, James Coburn, etc., seem to remember their old friend primarily as a drug addict & dealer? No, because not only was that not all there was to him, it wasn't close to being the most prominent aspect of his character. Dan Inosanto (who, when I asked him how we as fans should remember Bruce Lee, said to remember him as "an open-minded perfectionist") remembered him as, among other things, generous, Taky remembered him as encouraging, Jhoon Rhee remembered him as a supportive friend, Jackie Chan remembered him as someone who stood up for & appreciated his stuntmen. None of that means, of course, that Bruce didn't do some bad things, such as cheating on his wife, and, yes, messing around with cocaine, but, hell, the Reverend Martin Luthor King Jr. is now known to have had his share of extra-marital affairs, nobody was perfect, what famous person could live up to their public image?

Also, for me, these ugly revelations about Bruce Lee don't alter the fact that he was, undeniably, a huge positive inspiration for myself & millions of others like me. It was seeing Bruce Lee (even if what I saw was largely an carefully presented image) that inspired me to start working out (running, weight lifting, stretching, etc.), which I still do, still value, & to practice various martial arts  for decades (though I never had anything even close to his apparent natural talent for it, I had way more enthusiasm than talent), & to realize that it's perfectly ok to question authority even when that authority says you shouldn't (in fact, that's probably the 1st sign you should question!), & that we ought to feel free to think & reason for ourselves. I still appreciate all that inspiration & , actually, I/we can learn from Bruce's mistakes, too. Don't let those addictions (mine may not be cocaine [never touched the stuff], but caffeine & sugar? Well, my "dealer" goes by the name of Starbucks!) control you, folks, or get in the way of achieving your dreams, & becoming your best self. 

Bruce Lee certainly wasn't perfect, but no one is (& I didn't live his life or walk in his shoes, I shouldn't be too judgmental about him). That doesn't mean he didn't serve as a positive inspiration, just that, at some point, fortunately, I realized he was only human, afterall.

[Brucemee]

On 9/11/2022 at 2:20 AM, Cognoscente said:

One of the reasons why Bruce turned to drug dealing was because Raymond Chow wasn't exactly generous with money. In his final months, Bruce was becoming increasingly aggravated about not receiving his fair share of income in his company Concord. Besides the issue of the box office revenue from The Way of the Dragon, he wasn't exactly given a respectable salary for Enter the Dragon. I get the impression that he was thinking about providing for his children when he became a drug dealer.

Another thing that we have to bear in mind is that Bruce didn't just communicate with Baker via writing; he was bound to have called him too like he did with other people who he liked to write to e.g. Jhoon Rhee.

I often wonder if Bruce was open to Unicorn Chan about his dark lifestyle. Unicorn had some dodgy connections - he was a friend of Chan Wai-Man, and had done several films with gangster Alan Tang. Another actor friend of Bruce's, Wu Fung, was friends with a gangster - Patrick Tse. We will never know specifically who were Bruce's rivals or associates when it came to dealing.

Speaking of Bruce's associates & connections in Hong Kong, why do you think no one (at least to my knowledge) ever came forward about Bruce's cocaine issues prior to the Bob Baker letters coming to light? I would think that at least a few people aside from Bob & Linda knew about it, & not everyone Bruce knew in HK exactly loved him, was there a concerted cover-up, did people keep silent out of respect, or did no one else actually know? I'd guess that at least Betty knew, but guessing is, of course, all I can do ... just seems weird to me that a revelation of that magnitude could be completely suppressed for so long (it was public knowledge since at least the inquest in '73 that Bruce had a cannabis habit but no one knew about the cocaine?).

[Cognoscente]

Probably because exposing him would involve exposing themselves, or they could get done for libel/slander without any proof. Certainly after Baker stopped sending drugs after the May 10 collapse, Bruce would have made his drug use known in HK one way or another.

[eelecurb01]

Late to the party but.... I respect @shukocarl1441996347’s decision to sell his collection. But the reasons behind it seem suspect. I also have been collecting for almost 50 years. But from Day 1 I didn't buy the "Saint Bruce" image. He was a man like any other with both good and bad characteristics - generous to his friends, loved his family, dedicated to the arts, determined, etc but also a bully, manipulator, adulterer, bad temper, etc. So I have always chosen to follow Bruce's own advice "Absorb what is useful, reject what is useless”. The letters made exactly zero impact on how I feel about Bruce Lee. 

[PandaPawPaw]

You want to leave @shukocarl1441996347 and stop being my fan?

I don't think so.

Damn Bruce just let him go. Geez.

Edited February 25, 2023 by PandaPawPaw

[WangYu]

Were people already aware of the hugely detrimental effects on health of doing and selling hard drugs in the 60s and 70s?

They probably were but back in those days people got away with everything. Sex with under aged girls wasn’t as scandalous then as it is now either. Ask any rock star of the time.

different era

But it is clear that bruce lee would not get away with it these days

 

[shukocarl1441996347]

S

Edited March 6, 2023 by shukocarl1441996347

[PandaPawPaw]

23 minutes ago, shukocarl1441996347 said:

Hey Panda WTF did you mean by that?

I meant nothing by it. Just a harmless joke.

When I say 'my fan' I meant Bruce.

[ShawAngela]

32 minutes ago, shukocarl1441996347 said:

Hey Panda WTF did you mean by that?

I think that it's just a little bit of humor.

[shukocarl1441996347]

D

Edited March 6, 2023 by shukocarl1441996347