tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-39911206754718855682024-02-22T04:48:04.558-08:00Star Thriller Brandon LeeHis Life...His Death...The Rumors...The TruthUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3991120675471885568.post-78730065833523866432018-11-06T18:51:00.009-08:002021-08-28T07:53:23.955-07:00Who Was Brandon Lee?<div style="background-color: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.3em; margin-top: 0.3em; min-height: 1em;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #222222; font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #222222; font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href=" " style="background-color: transparent; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="307" data-original-width="448" height="274" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi73-kf1l9HYCsjsjK7aYyOUuEq9WZyMs2oNgCBzfxxwb1sRa-iFDR-22lhbpGCGBxVC2IGrCpHpTpQOQsbdIhXZzIEzhpvUudz9e3qgQOp7kwSJB-qYjurdcx1ENIjhggQXkAKHH_P3H6z/w400-h274/ABOUT+ME.jpg" width="400" /></a></div></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Stupid question, huh? But the fact is lots of people don't know him beyond his common definers</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">—</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Bruce Lee's son, Eric Draven in </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The Crow,</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> and "That guy </span></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">who was shot dead on a movie set." </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">He was so much more.</span><br /></span></span></span><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">He was a man of strong character. There was nothing wannabe about him. Early on, he knew what he wanted, went after it as only he could, and became a successful, long-range </span><span face=""arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #1a0dab;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">thespian at the precipice of super-stardom at his death.</span></span></span><br />
<span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br />He was a man for all seasons; </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">a man blessed with every gift but the gift of time. But in those twenty-eight short years, he packed in more than most do by fifty. An </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Outward Bound graduate, a martial artist, biker, rock climber, camper, hiker, guitarist, game player. Who loved </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Howard and Maude</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> and coffee and Eliza Hutton. He was a fan of Jackie Chan and Jackson Browne. A friend to Lou Diamond Phillips, Miguel Ferrer, Jeff Imada, and Bill Allen. He was a son, brother, fiancé, an arrogant, reckless, troubled young man, grief-stricken over his father's death, yet fighting tooth and nail to remove that son-of-Bruce-Lee comma that defined him. He was a sworn bachelor who refused to change for any woman—until he met Eliza Hutton and became a better man; a man at peace with his demons, a devoted companion, a loving fiancé—and would have become husband and father had there been time enough.</span></span><br />
<span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">He was struck down while going about the normal rhythms of his life. But don't call him a victim. Remember him the way he lived his life. And if we must remember his death, </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">remember him as a victor. </span></span></span><div><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="311" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/YP1oKz-37JA" width="374" youtube-src-id="YP1oKz-37JA"></iframe></div><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium; text-align: center;"> </div></span></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3991120675471885568.post-43495078022268942112018-11-06T18:48:00.004-08:002021-08-28T07:54:04.631-07:00Have You Seen Brandon Lately?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href=" " style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="179" data-original-width="234" height="305" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbRkXXDKyRm3hh74Ogp8ZkvbFpe3nswEId2JdGf2ROQKqeCuB5BsEb4HlhdXpruaG2gyTWkl4OhmFCb6fdNBXvIUcRw1zAAHF-pkflWKOzL1sLaROTOyVRKScOCq4TwEcWYWEm3r9Eewj_/s400/A+Joe.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">A number of years ago I ran across a site about haunted Seattle. One of the haunts was Brandon and Bruce Lee’s graves at Lakeview Cemetery. It seems the father and son have been seen practicing Jeet Kune Do on their graves in broad daylight,.</span>I know a gal who says she saw Brandon’s shadow captured on his headstone.</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>“He smiled at me,” she said. I remember seeing a picture someone had taken of this very thing, but I couldn’t see it myself.</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>Then there’s the gal who was in a 7 Eleven when a handsome young man walked in, with blond hair, wearing Chinese pants and a white tee-shirt, looking for all the world like Brandon Lee. Later she saw him at a florist shop, and a Winn Dixie store, apparently stalking her wherever she went. Why? Because she sent him flowers for his grave. Well, I had someone lay flowers on his grave for me, but I have yet to see Golden Corral or Cracker Barrel. Maybe I should hunt up Winn Dixie in my area. Ah, hmmmmm….</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>Back in c2006, I was an administrator on the Brandon and Bruce Lee forum. We attracted our share of loonies, but one, in particular, stands out. Sara started posting with a bang. “I twisted my ankle the other day, and it hurt so bad that I started crying.” And Brandon appeared to comfort her. Another post “I saw Brandon in my mirror.” Later, we were planning a forum wide chat—either for Brandon’s birthday or death anniversary, and Sara be like “I’m bringing Brandon as my date.” Seriously? And I be like “You better not,” come pretending our gentleman is sitting there beside you at the chat.</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>Did Brandon stalk some chick all over her town? Why would he?</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>Did Brandon appear to Sara while Sara was crying because her ankle hurt? Why would he?</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>Did she actually see him in her mirror? Why would he?</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>Why would he appear to a stranger in a place he had never been in life?</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>Does Brandon’s headstone sometimes capture his shadow? Possible.</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>Did Lawrence Mason and Robert Zuckerman see him? Possible. Because Brandon knew both these men, and he had been in the places where he appeared to them, so it most def makes sense that he might. It is also quite possible that what they saw was a figment of their sorrow of his death. Whatever the case, I honestly believe these two men saw something, while those two gals and others like them need to get a life.</span></span><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: medium;"> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: medium;"> </div></span></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3991120675471885568.post-12503607262373534702018-11-06T18:41:00.005-08:002021-08-28T07:54:40.851-07:00Brandon & Eliza<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<img border="0" data-original-height="210" data-original-width="240" height="350" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuJIui4dksRr6mLIpgJjX0GsHl5b7S0uEs6WS-OAyTJEoT9P-kmoJebSwVhQCeeFQBd17ARHLaiLyPuVYDt_tabylXmsk9g9Pe9J_ZnqlTaOtp-ztlzn-zUr_5UPUpye6VgjAq6EewjuJb/w400-h350/ACC+1.jpg" width="400" /></div>
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">What can you say about a man who is 28 years old, but will never be 29? A man who had every gift but the gift of time? That he was an actor. That he was the son of a famous martial artist/actor Bruce Lee. That he was once a rebel, who backed his car the wrong way down a one-way street. That he was known in his early acting years as an arrogant punk. That he loved pulling pranks, known as The Prince of Fun. That he loved coffee and motorcycles and rock climbing and Jackson Browne and Jackie Chan and </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Harold and Maude</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"> and Eliza Hutton.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">What can you say about a man who met the love of his life and was allotted just three short years with her? That love changed him forever. That it was such a love that the two became one and enriched each other; the sum of all their parts better together than apart.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">How do you begin to tell the story of love older than the sea?</span></span><br />
<span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif;" /></span>
<span face=""arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">What do you say?</span><br />
<span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif;" /></span>
<span face=""arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Where do you start?</span><br />
<span><span face=""arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><br /></span>Once upon a time in LA...</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>Brandon Lee never thought he'd settle down. In early 1990, he was still coming to terms with his dad, Bruce Lee's death, struggling as an actor to claw his way out of his dad's shadow. The girls he had dated wanted to change him, and he didn't want to be changed. He didn't want to lose his freedom or control over his life. And he refused to marry just to propagate the Lee name. He didn't think there was a woman out there who would understand him, who would let him be himself.</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>Little did he know.</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>There was a certain brunette, with a beautiful smile who worked as a personal assistant to producer Renny Harlin. And it just so happened that Renny Harlin and Brandon Lee shared the same agent, David Goldman, </span><span>at William Morris talent agency. One day, in 1990, Goldman wanted to drop by to have a word with Harlin, and Brandon went with him (they had just come from talks about a movie treatment with 20th Century Fox). It was in Harlin's office that Brandon was introduced to Eliza Hutton.</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>She found him cocky and intimidating, stuck on himself, and I would chance a guess that if anyone had told her, then that she was destined to fall in love with this arrogant guy, she would have laughed and rolled her eyes.</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>And what did Brandon Lee think of Eliza Hutton? Why he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her, that's what. There he was going about the normal rhythms of his life, with love nowhere in his plans, when BOOM! love flew into his heart. I'm sure Cupid had himself a fine old merry giggle. The next time the two met, Brandon was more himself, less nervous, sweet, dashing, and debonair.</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>What woman could resist all that?</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>Brandon Lee and Eliza Hutton were soon in an exclusive, very private, relationship, and eventually moved in together (1905 Benedict </span><span>Canyon). They were not only lovers but friends. Brandon was a born romantic, writing beautiful love letters, and quoting Shakespeare to her.</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>Now there continued a season of struggle for Brandon, still trying to come to terms with that comma after his name—Brandon Lee, son of Bruce Lee. He hit the Hollywood audition circuit, doing what he could to get acting roles, but it was frustrating for him because quality opportunities and good scripts were hard to come by. He began to immerse himself more in his father's martial ars via the Inosanto Academy, and for the first time in his life made a conscious effort to stop running from his father's legacy and embrace it. During this hard time, Eliza was Brandon's complete and total support system.</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>After <i>Kung Fu: The Movie, Kung Fu: The Next Generation</i>, a guest spot on the <i>O'hara</i> TV series, <i>Legacy of Rage</i>, his career began speeding forth. Eliza went with Brandon almost everywhere he went, including traveling around the world as he promoted his movies. <i>Laser Mission</i> (1990), <i>Showdown in Little Tokyo </i>(1991),<i> </i><i>Rapid Fire</i> (1992). She eventually became his assistant on movie sets. Whenever time permitted, they played too, spiriting away on romantic camping trips or across the border into Mexico, a place that became an exclusive hideaway for the pair on weekends. She even appeared with him in a cameo in the Swedish movie <i>Sex.Logner.Och. Videovald.</i></span><br /><span> </span><span><br /></span>
<span>Venice, Italy, 1992. Brandon Lee, on bended knee, asked Eliza Hutton to be his wife. She said yes.</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>Also in 1992, Brandon was offered the role of his father in <i>Dragon: the Story of Bruce Lee</i>. But it unnerved him. He instead read the script for <i>The Crow</i>, the story about a couple who are murdered by thugs on the eve of their wedding day. The movie couple, Eric and Shelly were very much like Brandon and Eliza, deeply in love.</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>On his 28th time between Wilmington, acting as his assistant, and in LA, preparing for their wedding. On his birthday, Monday, February 1, 1993, Brandon began filming <i>The Crow</i> in Wilmington, North Carolina. The shoot was scheduled to take some 59 days.</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>From day one, accidents haunted the set of <i>The Crow.</i> Brandon submitted a formal complaint to producer Ed Pressman about the subhuman working conditions, but it was ignored. The accidents and horrendous conditions climaxed shortly after midnight, on Wednesday, March 31, 1993, when Brandon Lee was accidentally shot to death with a .44 Magnum prop revolver.</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>Eliza had spent much of the shoot back in LA, preparing for the upcoming nuptials and honeymoon; thus she was not on the set that fateful morning. Brandon's best friend and stunt coordinator on The Crow, Jeff Imada, called her and told her to get back to Wilmington ASAP. She at first thought it was one of Brandon's pranks, but Jeff soon made her realize it was for real. She caught the next flight out and was with him when he died at 1:03pm, Wednesday, March 31, 1993.</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>The Wilmington, North Carolina DA ruled it an accident.</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>As it turned out the movie couple and the real couple had more in common than love and planned marriage, for three would die, and the lone living would share a taste of death, for when someone that you love so profoundly that they are your very heart you suffer la <span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">petite mort</span></span>, a little death, for part of you goes into the grave with them. But because she loved him so much, and because love is strength, my friend, it endures all things, even death, Eliza Hutton was able to survive her beloved's tragic death.</span></span><br />
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="364" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/e2Nlib5UVt4" width="438" youtube-src-id="e2Nlib5UVt4"></iframe></div><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: medium;"> </div><div style="font-size: medium; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: medium;"> </div></div></span>
<br /></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3991120675471885568.post-34634174680281200872018-11-06T18:37:00.012-08:002021-08-28T07:55:33.989-07:00That Guy - Interview by Cindy Wiggins Tapia <div style="text-align: left;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href=" " style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="351" data-original-width="662" height="258" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr6LNrRhZOh4TAklEqNCf4XSvBmVTlnugU6dbvX_vvMyYBdsbWE23845zHxtgYm8w8sfodRvUehiMT47hk5arQOyiRY3N2asH8tK4pTjVt_9IixcJeD_a8CgwwBY8IrBwWvJ9L1OOQP7gr/w400-h258/al+leong.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
<span>Al Leong on his films, TV series, Lizards, Stuffed Animals, Cancer, & Brandon Lee</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>"No Asian has ever and still has never created more controversy and exposure for the Asian population than Bruce Lee."--Al Leong, The Eight Lives of Al "Ka-Bong Leong"</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>"If you open my fortune cookie, it would probably say 'Everyone dies, but not everyone lives.'" That Guy says at the end of his <i>The Eight Lives of Al Ka-Bong Leong </i>bio, "If you can live one-third of the life that I have, you are doing well."</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>And what a life he has led.</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>"I come from a very tough Chinese family." Born in St. Louis, Missouri, on September 30, 1952, in that legendary Year of the Dragon--the same Chinese Zodiac period (1940) as Bruce and Brandon (1966) Lee. It has been said that if the dragon blesses his children, he also exacts a terrible price. Myth, perhaps, but one wonders when studying the lives of these three men.</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>When young, he and his older siblings, Ray and Karen, lived in a Chinese laundry that his parents owned on the corner of Shenandoah and Compton. He and his siblings were the only Asians attending Shenandoah Elementary School. In the third grade, he took a gymnastics class "which I would say is one of the key reasons for my becoming a stunt person." He watched the Beatles perform on The Ed Sullivan Show on February 9, 1964, enjoyed ice cream at the Velvet Freeze, and hamburgers at White Castle, and spent his summers with his brother, Ray, catching grasshoppers, katydids, tadpoles, lizards, and, as all boys do, dreaming his boy dreams of what he would be when he grew up.</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>Slowly, the wheel of his life began to turn. In 1961, his family pulled up roots and moved to New York City and, in 1963, LA. In junior high and high school he trained extensively in the martial arts, which he credits with keeping him out of trouble. He also wanted to get into gymnastics, "but they wanted me to cut my hair." What bothered him most about this was that there was a person there with longer hair than his. He refused to cut his hair and spent his time in an auto shop.</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>Al Leong became a man of many interests. He trained in the martial arts in LA Chinatown under Master Ark Yuey Wong and entered tournaments. He has a love of Chinese culture, including helping zigzag Jeff Chan's huge dragon up and down Chinatown during Chinese New Year parades.* He is fond of lizards, and stuffed animals, motorcycles, quads, and dirt bikes. He tells the story "Rick Wong and I were riding at El Mirage Dry Lake in 112° heat...in the middle of nowhere," when an ice cream truck came rolling along."</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>He and Fred Phillips started up a business painting automobiles, for $1,500 each. It was during a period he has titled in his book Eve of Destruction, with good reason..It was a time before OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) was created to protect workers from hazardous working conditions. So every day, sometimes six or seven days per week, he sprayed cars and trucks with "highly potent, deadly" acrylic enamel many times without a mask, the bondo dust thick in the air, "my nose would run for weeks," and in later years this came back to haunt him.</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>But first came Hollywood</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>"I attended a party and the producers of the original Kung Fu series," were interested in his expertise as a martial artist, but it didn't pan out.</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>In 1974, he became disillusioned with the martial arts tournament circuit and walked away from it. His brother Ray got him a job at Warner Bros. Records and he taught martial arts in the evening at Doug Wong's school. Ultimately, he decided to give the tournament another try, competing in the 1980 World Silver Cup Martial Arts Championships and brought home the World Silver Cup.</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>In early 1983, he auditioned for Universal Studios' live show for <i>Conon the Barbarian</i>. He brought a Kwan Do weapon and demonstrated how it was used, and won the part using the Kwan Do, which was set it to music. The choreographer didn't have a clue how to set up fight scenes. "He had dangerous blind moves where you would spin around and fight the guy behind you and then come back and fight the guy that you were originally fighting." During a spin scene "I was cut really badly above the right eye, and if it were any closer, I probably would've lost my right sight.</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>Stunt Coordinator Craig Baxley brought him into work on many A-Team episodes.</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>And, as they say, the rest is history.</span><span><br /></span>
</span><ul>
<li><span style="font-size: medium;">Endio in <i>Lethal Weapon </i>who tried to fry Mel Gibson</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: medium;">Uli the candy bar eating terrorist in <i>Die Hard</i></span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: medium;">Genghis Khan in <i>Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure</i></span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: medium;">The screaming gangbanger, Wing Kong Hatchet Man in <i>Big Trouble in Little China.</i></span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: medium;">And was a stuntman on Brandon Lee's <i>Showdown in Little Tokyo</i></span></li><li><span style="font-size: medium;">Mihn in Brandon Lee's <i>Rapid Fire</i></span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br />
<span>Cindy Wiggins Tapia: "Mr. Leong, that war cry is my favorite part of the movie."</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>Al Leong: "Cindy, it was a hungry cry. We hadn't been fed yet."</span><br />
<br />
<span>AL: Jeff Imado, who is a friend of mine from way back, was also great in setting this role (Mihn in Rapid Fire) for me. I do believe I was initially set up to play Kinman Tau [the Chinese tong leader], which went to Tza Ma. I was called in three times and read pieces of his dialogue. I screw up. If they had called me back for another reading, I would have done much better. I am not primarily an actor, as such, and am fine with fight scenes. Tzi Ma did a great job. Because I didn't get that role, there are two fight scenes at the end--between my character, Mihn, and Brandon's Jake Lo in the laundry, and Jake Lo and Tzi Ma at the rail tracks. I was in Hawaii working for Craig Baxley, doing a pilot for the TV series, Raven, when they called me back to LA. The producers said I could fly again one day, do the fight the next day, and fly back the following day. This regular shoot for this fight takes 3-5 days. Of course, I had no idea what size this fight was going to be till I showed up in LA. Director Dwight Little was great, the crew was excellent, Jeff Imada wonderful, and Brandon Lee excellent to work with. The only problem was a producer that made sure I did not get paid cause he went to sag and said I was working another job in Hawaii so, according to sag rules, they don't have to pay me.</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>The <i>Rapid Fire</i> role was his first role after coming back from dire illness.</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>He has worked on many TV series, including</span><br />
</span><ul>
<li><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Twilight Zone</i></span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>TJ Hooker</i></span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Magnum PI</i></span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Knight Rider</i></span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span>But above all his body of work, his biggest roles were in his personal life. Husband to Tracie, father to son, Brenden, and daughter, McKen-Z, and cancer survivor.</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>It started with a huge lump on the right side of his neck and killer headaches "that I thought was created by a bug spray called malathion" that the city used to control the mosquito population." After seeing five different doctors, he was finally diagnosed with final stage carcinoma brain cancer. An MRI revealed an inoperable growth at the base of his skull. </span></span><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>"My body started doing strange things and" he "became allergic to alcohol and Betadine" cleaning solutions, "broke out with a bad rash which lasted two weeks, and developed the symptoms of a pregnant woman. The smell of coffee, popcorn, and other things, revolted him.</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>He was hooked up to a morphine pump, which he refused to use because "I felt that I could deal with the pain." Did I mention he was tough? To administer radiology they went into his left ear and removed his eardrum--causing him to be deaf in that ear to this day--and his saliva gland, making it impossible for him to eat popcorn or French fries. He also must take water wherever he goes. During the radiation therapy, he wore a custom-made mask while the machines spun back and forth over his head. The chemo gave him a metallic taste in his mouth.</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>He had always loved stuffed animals and while he was in the hospital his then-girlfriend, Tracie Yamashita, who was his everything and eventually became his wife--after she stopped smoking at his request--brought him a twenty-inch fox that he named Wolfman and a three-foot-tall frog that he called Hummy Dummy.</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>He had two strokes. And you have to ask yourself how anyone could survive that and final stage brain cancer. Did I mention he was tough?</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>Today, Al Ka-Bong Leong can no longer ride motorcycles or quads or dirt bikes. He has lost much of his once thick crown of hair, his left arm is paralyzed from having broken his shoulder blade multiple times. He types with one finger, posts images on Facebook, rides his special bike, and he has his family and his glory days. As the Lees, he was blessed with many gifts, but unlike them, he possesses the gift of time, which he sums up in four words.</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>"The best life ever."</span><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<div style="font-family: "times new roman"; margin: 0px;">
Parts of this article were culled from Al's bio,<i> <a href="https://smile.amazon.com/Eight-Lives-Al-Ka-Bong-Leong/dp/0615384994/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1524744708&sr=8-1&keywords=the+eight+lives+of+al+kabong+leong">The Eight Lives of Al Ka-bong Leong</a></i>, with Special permission. from the man himself, Mr. Al Leong.</div><div style="font-family: "times new roman"; margin: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: "times new roman"; margin: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: "times new roman"; margin: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: "times new roman"; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </div></div>
</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3991120675471885568.post-49221647371194237752018-11-04T20:23:00.005-08:002021-08-28T07:56:08.158-07:00The Devil's Advocate<div style="background-color: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.3em; margin-top: 0.3em; min-height: 1em; widows: 1;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<img border="0" data-original-height="557" data-original-width="315" height="592" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhwTsEBIK2IZ83R1lmLdMxLxLy0oMp6nNvGMxA_ETEgXxQ1y9vgS0QwSDfZQ0dKQTJD6cRpBdJt3-WHXUk1HjpgTps74O2sDBFDbNZTpnL0ZOXnSxMe4IC-LjPMXOGMqkI3_ICtpkF_Vni/w364-h592/A+Joe.jpg" width="364" /></div><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Rumors fly, as always, when a celebrity's death is clouded in mystery. </span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">After Brandon Lee was shot to death on the set of</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><i style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">The Crow</i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">, curses, murder, hoax, suicide by proxy, and cover-up flew like gun smoke on the wind; easily discharged, impossible to grasp or contain. </span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; line-height: normal; widows: 1;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br />As <i>The Crow</i> taped, racking up one mishap after another, cast and crew whispered of a curse—the Curse of <i>The Crow</i>... And when Brandon Lee was killed, the media trotted out the Curse of the Dragon... And what of the<i> Joy Division</i> Curse? <br /><br />By curse, by fickle fate, or—as some believe—by murder, Brandon Lee has joined the ranks of fate's children... Thelma Todd, Prince, Michael Jackson, John F. Kennedy, Marilyn Monroe, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain, Bruce Lee... </span><br />
</span><div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">What were the circumstances of Brandon Lee's death? Suicide by proxy, that is, did he hire someone to kill him because he wanted to be with his dad? Hoax? Is he in fact alive baking on some sun-drenched beach, cold Corona to hand, grinning that grin? Accident? Was he the victim of careless actions by certain crew members and a clock-watching penny-pinching production? Murder? Curse? What is the truth behind Brandon Lee's death? On the following pages of GunSmoke, you will find the truth, as much of the truth as I have been able to cull from all the fictions floating around out there. The truth, yet some speculations are a judgment call. </span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; line-height: normal; widows: 1;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; line-height: normal; widows: 1;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Now, come along with me as I play the devil's advocate, and dig out what really happened</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">—but keep in mind along the way that the truth is sometimes stranger than the lies...and even the paranormal.</span></span></div><div style="background-color: white; line-height: normal; widows: 1;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="background-color: white; line-height: normal; widows: 1;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="background-color: white; line-height: normal; text-align: center; widows: 1;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium; widows: 2;"> </div></span></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3991120675471885568.post-83228033842915204582018-11-04T20:21:00.010-08:002021-08-28T07:57:04.481-07:00Child of Fate<div style="background-color: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.3em; margin-top: 0.3em; min-height: 1em; text-align: justify; widows: 1;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="630" data-original-width="432" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcyqOByKlspyNI31-tQOla4h4EJ3XzoS43NtmmT0hH_N_rAH_NFpMWLhDTQA4CpAr6Iz-aPYv8D1GiN2xz6-Yjvo90dwLal_S8h-8T7j0JGijtxfTdQD1bf27p5U-vW8gpcGefaEQ_ZgQE/w274-h400/1734.jpg" width="274" /></div><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: left;"><div style="background-color: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.3em; margin-top: 0.3em; min-height: 1em; text-align: justify; widows: 1;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Bruce Lee was a 22-year-old sophomore at the University of Washington. Linda Emery was a 17-year-old senior at Garfield High School. He was dark. She was blond. He was a martial artist. She was a cheerleader. It was magic.</span></span></div></span></div><div style="background-color: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.3em; margin-top: 0.3em; min-height: 1em; text-align: justify; widows: 1;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium; text-align: left;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.3em; margin-top: 0.3em; min-height: 1em;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">She saw him for the first time when he came to her high school to lecture on Chinese philosophy. They met later when she went with a friend to Bruce's Jeet Kune Do martial arts studio, Jun Fan Gung Institute. After class one day, they went to a Chinese restaurant, and that is where their love began to bloom. They began dating in secret because Linda feared her family wouldn't approve of their interracial relationship. It wasn't long before the young lovers decided to marry. When Bruce told his father that he was going to marry a white girl, Lee Hoi Chuen said that it would give him much pleasure if his son married his own kind, but, if he truly loved Linda, the union had his blessings—after all, Bruce's mother, Grace, was half German. They decided to elope, with the hope that Linda's mother would come to accept their union. </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">But their plans were foiled when they received their marriage license. It never occurred to either that the magistrate would announce their impending marriage in the newspapers. One of Linda's aunts saw it. And the poop hit the high wind</span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.3em; margin-top: 0.3em; min-height: 1em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.4em; max-width: 99.9%; min-height: 1em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">A big family meeting was called to order, and the couple was called on the carpet. The aunt and her husband were religious, and they thought interracial marriage was an abomination, and Linda's mother most certainly did not approve of their relationship. Linda's father had died when she was young and her mother was naturally over-protective. She wanted the best for her only child, and she didn't think Bruce Lee was it. Aside from the obvious, Mrs. Emery didn't think Bruce's teaching and martial arts studio had a future, much less support her daughter. But nothing any of her family said could persuade Linda and Bruce to even delay their marriage, much less call the whole thing off. (Because Bruce died not many years after their marriage, and their time together was so short, Linda has said that if they hadn't gotten married when they did there might not have been a Brandon or a Shannon.) </span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.4em; max-width: 99.9%; min-height: 1em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.3em; margin-top: 0.3em; min-height: 1em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">Determined to prove himself husband-material, Bruce opened another <span class="pwa pwa2 pwa-color pwa-red" data-category="grammarspelling" data-help="SIMPLE_SPELLING" data-index="6" data-original-text="situ" data-report="grammar" data-sub-category="situ" data-suggestions="site,sits" data-tag-id="6c3073fc-3f82-49db-8c52-d3e6e0232581" data-urls="" data-x-title="Unknown word: situ" pwa-editor-id="" pwa-tag="" style="border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(201, 81, 63); float: none; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">situ</span>, Jan Fan Gung Fu Institute in Oakland, California, and so it went, but in the end, love won out. Bruce Lee Jun Fan and Linda Emery were married at the Seattle Congregational Church, August 1964.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.3em; margin-top: 0.3em; min-height: 1em;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">Then came Brandon</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.3em; margin-top: 0.3em; min-height: 1em;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">According to his mom, Linda, he had black hair that later turned blond. His </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">dad </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">pronounced him the only blond, gray-eyed Chinaman on Earth. It grew darker as he grew older. He was all boy, running circles around his mother. He was a tough kid, and Linda has said that he was hard to raise because he was always challenging the norm. Bruce was away making movies much of the time. Although this made him sad, he adored his father, who began training him in the martial art of Jeet Kune Do, when he was barely walking, and later they appeared in expositions. He was a camera ham who always wanted to be an actor, but not in his father's footsteps.</span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.3em; margin-top: 0.3em; min-height: 1em;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Brandon Lee was a rebel with a cause. He spent his whole life trying to erase that comma after his name—Brandon, son of Bruce Lee—</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">and would have, had he time enough. His father's death devastated him. He became a withdrawn, angry young man. He </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">was a poor student, but not for lack of intellect. He was just one of those bright students who do not see the need for school and do not try because they can't thrive in the traditional classroom. He had issues with authority, always challenged it. He was expelled as a result and attended several high schools.</span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.4em; max-width: 99.9%; min-height: 1em;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">When John Lennon was shot to death in 1980, student union president Brandon dismissed his grade out of respect for the fallen Beatle and was expelled. He was expelled from Chadwick School, in Palos Verdes, CA,, for insubordination, and never returned. He got his high school diploma at nearby </span><span class="pwa pwa2 pwa-color pwa-red" data-category="grammarspelling" data-help="SIMPLE_SPELLING" data-index="6" data-original-text="Miraleste" data-report="grammar" data-sub-category="Miraleste" data-suggestions="moralist,Moralist,moralized,muralist,moralised" data-tag-id="af4a3a6f-2362-451f-abc0-8f46810812e9" data-urls="" data-x-title="Unknown word: Miraleste" pwa-editor-id="" pwa-tag="" style="background-color: transparent; border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(201, 81, 63); float: none; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Miraleste</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">. He attended </span><span class="pwa pwa2 pwa-color pwa-red" data-category="grammarspelling" data-help="SIMPLE_SPELLING" data-index="5" data-original-text="Emerson Collage" data-report="grammar" data-sub-category="Emerson Collage" data-suggestions="Emerson College" data-tag-id="c1eaf079-f988-4054-b403-5c6741e46415" data-urls="" data-x-title="Incorrect named entity spelling: Emerson Collage" pwa-editor-id="" pwa-tag="" style="background-color: transparent; border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(201, 81, 63); float: none; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Emerson College</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> in Boston for a year; then transferred to New York City and attended </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: italic;">the</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Lee Strasberg Academy and joined the famed Eric Morris's American Theatre Group. Linda has said that while watching him act during those days, she forgot he was her son. </span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br />
</span><div style="background-color: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.3em; margin-top: 0.3em; min-height: 1em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">According to Linda, Brandon's first role was at age six when he kicked his way through one of his father's early films, but his first professional movie was <span style="font-style: italic;">Kung Fu: The Movie,</span> 1986, based on the hit TV show by the same name. <span> </span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.3em; margin-top: 0.3em; min-height: 1em;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.3em; margin-top: 0.3em; min-height: 1em;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">David Carradine was set to reprise the role of Chang Caine, the renegade Shaolin monk, who wanders the West helping people in trouble. The TV series had been Bruce Lee's idea, but the producers didn't want to </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">cast him in the lead because he was too Chinese-looking. (To their credit, though, Caine was half American-half Chinese) Even so, how much that affected Brandon is anyone's guess, but when he was approached to play Caine's son in the movie version, he was reluctant. He was unhappy about the martial arts aspect. He didn't want his own skills compared with Bruce's and he felt doing the movie would draw him deeper into his father's shadow. The producers sat him down and told him this movie would be the perfect vehicle to begin his career. In the end, of course, he caved in. He didn't want to do </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: italic;">O'Hara</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">, 1986, either, but, again, he gave in to pressure from producers. Unhappy with the roles he was being offered in the USA—like his father before him—Brandon Lee went to Hong Kong and made action movies. He made </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: italic;">Legacy of Rage</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> in 1986. During the filming of </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: italic;">Legacy</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">, Brandon earned a reputation of being an arrogant, rich brat. Back in the USA, in 1987, he made</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: italic;"> Kung Fu: The Next Generation</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">, a modern version of the series, in the role of </span><span class="pwa pwa1 pwa-color pwa-red" data-category="grammarspelling" data-help="SIMPLE_SPELLING" data-index="7" data-original-text="Johnny Caine" data-report="grammar" data-sub-category="Johnny Caine" data-suggestions="Johnny Cain" data-tag-id="86fef594-f270-4ec4-86dc-6fea4718e4c2" data-urls="" data-x-title="Incorrect named entity spelling: Johnny Caine" pwa-editor-id="" pwa-tag="" style="border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(201, 81, 63); float: none; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Johnny Caine</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">, grandson of the character he played in </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: italic;">Kung Fu: The Movie</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">. </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: italic;">Laser Mission</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> followed in 1990. That same year he met the love of his life, Eliza Hutton. Love changed him. He calmed down and became a nicer guy on the set as we noted above.</span><span class="inherit-font-size" style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.3em; margin-top: 0.3em; min-height: 1em;">
<span class="inherit-font-size"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.4em; max-width: 99.9%; min-height: 1em;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The next movie was <span style="font-style: italic;">Showdown in Little Tokyo</span> 1991; and <span style="font-style: italic;">Rapid Fire</span> 1992. Then, that same year, he accepted a cameo in <span style="font-style: italic;">Sex<span class="pwa pwa2 pwa-color pwa-blue" data-category="grammargrammar" data-help="WHITESPACE" data-index="0" data-original-text="." data-report="grammar" data-sub-category="." data-suggestions=". " data-tag-id="1a368f9f-0848-48b9-9725-da72348054a3" data-urls="" data-x-title="The punctuation mark '.' may require a space after it. Consider adding the space." pwa-editor-id="" pwa-tag="" style="border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(68, 101, 196); float: none; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">.</span><span class="pwa pwa1 pwa-color pwa-red" data-category="grammarspelling" data-help="SIMPLE_SPELLING" data-index="7" data-original-text="Logner" data-report="grammar" data-sub-category="Logner" data-suggestions="Lohner,Lognes,LOONER,Lagner,Bogner" data-tag-id="60f35e8f-c9af-4c81-b2d9-ad33fa7004ff" data-urls="" data-x-title="Unknown word: Logner" pwa-editor-id="" pwa-tag="" style="border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(201, 81, 63); float: none; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Logner</span><span class="pwa pwa2 pwa-color pwa-blue" data-category="grammargrammar" data-help="WHITESPACE" data-index="1" data-original-text="." data-report="grammar" data-sub-category="." data-suggestions=". " data-tag-id="f9e3a228-0c4e-465a-b1a5-d6f542e63083" data-urls="" data-x-title="The punctuation mark '.' may require a space after it. Consider adding the space." pwa-editor-id="" pwa-tag="" style="border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(68, 101, 196); float: none; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">.</span>Och<span class="pwa pwa2 pwa-color pwa-blue" data-category="grammargrammar" data-help="WHITESPACE" data-index="2" data-original-text="." data-report="grammar" data-sub-category="." data-suggestions=". " data-tag-id="d8d2b859-6cef-4719-bb3b-39a5caa54d4b" data-urls="" data-x-title="The punctuation mark '.' may require a space after it. Consider adding the space." pwa-editor-id="" pwa-tag="" style="border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(68, 101, 196); float: none; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">.</span><span class="pwa pwa1 pwa-color pwa-red" data-category="grammarspelling" data-help="SIMPLE_SPELLING" data-index="8" data-original-text="Videovald" data-report="grammar" data-sub-category="Videovald" data-suggestions="Whitefield,Watervliet,Wheatfield,wheatfield" data-tag-id="220120a7-0519-4473-88b7-155a4cf48e8a" data-urls="" data-x-title="Unknown word: Videovald" pwa-editor-id="" pwa-tag="" style="border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(201, 81, 63); float: none; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Videovald</span></span> (<span style="font-style: italic;">Sex, Lies, & Video violence</span>), filmed in Sweden. He was offered the part of his father in <span style="font-style: italic;">Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story</span>, but, in the words of StarThrillerBrandonLee friend Clare Aston, "it could be a career-ender, and the Oedipal aspects of playing your own father weirded him out a bit." Add to that, taking the role would push him deeper into his dad's legendary shadow. So,</span></span><span color="var(--primary-text)" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large; font-weight: 600; text-align: inherit;"> </span><span color="var(--primary-text)" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large; text-align: inherit;">he turned it down and opted to make </span><span color="var(--primary-text)" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large; font-style: italic; text-align: inherit;">The Crow</span><span color="var(--primary-text)" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large; text-align: inherit;">.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.4em; max-width: 99.9%; min-height: 1em;"><span style="font-size: medium;">
<br />
</span><div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-style: italic;">The Crow</span> is based on the comic book series by the same name. It was written and illustrated by James O'Barr of Detroit, Michigan. Ironically, just as the filming, in March 1993 died in the tragedy, so the comic was born in tragedy. When O'Barr was sixteen, he met the love of his life, and they planned to marry after graduation, but when she was two weeks shy of eighteen, she was struck and killed by a drunk driver, and O'Barr went into a tailspin of anger and poisoned the soul. <span class="inherit-font-size"> </span>Writing <span style="font-style: italic;">The Crow</span> comics was his therapy, the way he worked that poison out of his blood. Eric Draven is James O'Barr. For years, he kept the comic for his eyes only. Then, </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">one day, he showed it to Gary Reed, owner of his comic book shop haunt, Comics Plus. Reed liked it so much he began publishing </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: italic;">The Crow</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> series, and </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: italic;">Caliber C</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">omics was born</span><span class="pwa pwa2 pwa-color pwa-blue pwa-span-hovered" data-category="grammargrammar" data-help="WHITESPACE" data-index="4" data-original-text="." data-report="grammar" data-sub-category="." data-suggestions=". " data-tag-id="b2c5e9f9-2047-44e4-955e-b37d47a24f58" data-urls="" data-x-title="The punctuation mark '.' may require a space after it. Consider adding the space." pwa-editor-id="" pwa-tag="" style="background: rgb(125, 155, 241); border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(68, 101, 196); float: none; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">.</span><span class="inherit-font-size" style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The series sold fairly well by word of mouth. And Hollywood called with an offer. The writer turned producer John Shirley (</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: italic;">The Specialist</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">), Jeff Most (</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: italic;">Top 40 Videos</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">), and Ed Pressman, (</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: italic;">Badlands</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">) were directly responsible for leading </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: italic;">The Crow</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> into production culminating in tragedy.</span></span></div>
</div>
<div style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.4em; max-width: 99.9%; min-height: 1em;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; widows: 1;"><span style="font-size: medium;">
<i>In what is considered his last interview, Brandon quoted Paul Bowles' <span style="font-style: italic;">Sheltering Sky. "How many more full moons will you see?" (paraphrased). </span>And on that fateful Wednesday, March 31, 1993, shortly after midnight, carrying a grocery bag, he opened a door and stepped into the Ages. </i></span></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.3em; margin-top: 0.3em; min-height: 1em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="inherit-font-size"></span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.3em; margin-top: 0.3em; min-height: 1em;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.3em; margin-top: 0.3em; min-height: 1em;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: medium; text-align: center;"> </div><div style="font-size: medium;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: medium; text-align: center;"> </div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3991120675471885568.post-79110770251961408412018-11-04T20:17:00.003-08:002021-08-28T07:57:53.889-07:00Hoax<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<img border="0" data-original-height="311" data-original-width="500" height="249" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhy2o_I2uq0pLwv270kLqpaQajz1nnMQ65thQ7UsLg0g7AeOgBwtu6HzGmCSwHLlge0g-LEMn793fykMUZue4ls4VC25XfvhzYfUWGUEOjB3U3svY7BKjEvtMu1KPGp4nfDzAcvHtlGLsPc/w400-h249/A+Joe.jpg" width="400" /></div><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Some people believe Brandon's death was a hoax, and he is still kicking somewhere. I got that off of <a href="http://www.franksreelreviews.com/shorttakes/brandonlee/brandonlee.htm">Morbidly Hollywood</a>. The author didn't believe it any more than I do. Why would Brandon do such a thing? He wouldn't, would he? He didn't want to live in the shadow of his father; he wanted to erase that comma after his name, not embolden it. He wasn't into drugs; his <a href="http://www.autopsyfiles.org/reports/Celebs/lee,%20brandon_report.pdf">autopsy tox</a> was clean. He wasn't in any other desperate trouble that anyone has been able to dig up. </span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">You'd be surprised at the folks who believe Brandon's death was not an accident, not murder, but suicide by proxy. That's right. It seems he missed his dad so much that, after some nineteen years, he just could no longer deal with it, so he either hired or talked someone into putting a live bullet in the .44 Magnum so when Massee pulled the trigger—BOOM—Brandon would be shot off to be with his dad, at last. Amen. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Can you say bullspit? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The man was happy with his life. He wasn't called The Prince of Fun for nothing. He was making plans for the future; poised to marry his beloved Eliza, and they were already trying to get pregnant, and he was in talks to make another movie with the creators of <i>Rapid Fire</i> and was under contract with Miramax/Carolco Films to make two more <i>Crow</i> movies. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Sound like a man who wanted to die? I don't think so.</span></span><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium; text-align: center;"> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium; text-align: center;"> </div></span></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3991120675471885568.post-49300621386886839512018-11-04T20:15:00.007-08:002021-08-28T07:59:39.856-07:00Curses 2+1<h2 style="text-align: center;">
<div style="line-height: 1.4em; max-width: 99.9%;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: medium; font-weight: normal; text-align: center;">
<a href=" " style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="506" data-original-width="344" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivMfiEpkJefM8ZrFqw5rNiUVChxn7XnJ6a1LOSQy_yvbFAXOUGltevWbnkGFjjX6nN8A12sftAHWSV3cuGew6zn2U08Aqa09V578hwsXpp_34bNyJc0aIPAFlVI0AOw5aQyRAAb8xgPvA0/s320/A+Joe.jpg" width="217" /></a></div><div style="font-size: medium; font-weight: normal; text-align: center;"><br /></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><div style="text-align: left;"> <span><span style="font-size: medium;">FORWARD: THE PATH</span></span></div></span></div></div></h2>
Why do some people die young while others live long lives? You can say of the man who lives a violent life and dies a violent death or the woman who overdoses on drugs that each chose the path that led to their deaths. But what about someone who takes the right path and is tragically struck down anyway?<br />
<br />
Every path we choose leads to the big sleep, doesn't it? Most times you point yourself right at it—playing Russian Rolette, driving at the speed of light... But sometimes someone else points you to oblivion. Something happens. And the clock begins ticking...<br />
<br />
Where did Brandon's tragic fate begin?<br />
<br />
Did it begin when Hollywood optioned the comic? When James O'Barr wrote<i> The Crow</i>? When Brandon Lee became an actor? When Bruce began teaching the secrets of martial arts to non-Asians? When a white girl married a Chinese boy and a mixed-blood son was born? Or farther back? Back, back, back to the grandfather...<br /><br />
<h3 style="background-color: white; font-family: "Segoe UI", "Lucida Grande", sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0.3em; margin-top: 0.3em; min-height: 1em;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif; text-align: justify;">1. CURSE OF THE DRAGON</span></h3>
<div style="line-height: 1.4em; max-width: 99.9%;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;">His name was Lee Hoi Chuen, a famous Hong Kong actor with the Cantonese Opera Company. No one remembers or is saying, when or why—if it is even true—Lee Hoi Chuen angered a group of Chinese merchants, who lashed out with a curse: one by one, each Lee male would die young. I can only imagine how this must have affected Lee Hoi Chuen, but he got on with his life. </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif; line-height: 1.4em; text-align: justify;">Chuen married Grace, a Catholic of German-Chinese </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif; line-height: 19.6px; text-align: justify;">blood. </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif; text-align: justify;">They lived in a tiny apartment in the Kowloon section of the Island. </span><span class="pwa pwa2 pwa-color pwa-red" data-category="grammarspelling" data-help="SIMPLE_SPELLING" data-index="6" data-original-text="Kowtoon" data-report="grammar" data-sub-category="Kowtoon" data-suggestions="Cotton,Jordan,Garden,Gordon,Guardian" data-tag-id="285f2c92-b88d-4143-a04d-89b22a6419f1" data-urls="" data-x-title="Unknown word: Kowtoon" pwa-editor-id="" pwa-tag="" style="border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(201, 81, 63); float: none; font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;">Kowloon</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif; text-align: justify;"> is Chinese for Pond of the Nine Dragons. </span><br /><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif; text-align: justify;">Their first son died in infancy. The second son was given a girl's name, Little Phoenix, to trick the demon from whom they believed took the life of that first boy babe, but in their hearts, he was their little Lee Jun-Fan. The trick worked for a season. But when the dragon realized he'd been fooled, he decided not to kill the boy right out, but to shadow the son who was to become an actor and martial arts legend superstar. </span></div>
<address style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.4em; max-width: 99.9%; text-align: justify;">
<div style="font-family: "Segoe UI", "Lucida Grande", sans-serif; font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0.3em; margin-top: 0.3em; min-height: 1em; text-align: start;"><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif; line-height: 1.4em; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif; line-height: 1.4em;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif; line-height: 1.4em;">B</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 1.4em;">orn in the Hour of the Dragon, on November 27, in the Year of the Dragon, 1940. He grew up in the shadow of a dragon's curse, in the Pond of the Nine Dragons—Kowloon. </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif; line-height: normal;"><span style="line-height: 1.4em;">Lee claimed a 4th-dimensional demon followed him about all of his life. The Scene in </span><em style="line-height: 1.4em;"><span style="line-height: 1.4em;">Enter the Dragon</span></em><span style="line-height: 1.4em;"> where Bruce is fighting the mysterious Han in the mirrored room is based on his struggle with that 4D entity. <span color="color_0"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif; line-height: normal;"><span style="line-height: 1.4em;">The demon is also portrayed in </span><em style="line-height: 1.4em;"><span style="line-height: 1.4em;">Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, </span></em></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif; line-height: normal;"><span style="line-height: 1.4em;">where the demon rises up and chases Bruce and later Brandon. Chilling, do you think? </span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif; line-height: 1.4em;">Bruce believed he would die at age 32, exactly half the age that his father, Lee Hoi Chuen died. And he did, didn't he? </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 1.4em;"> and had just completed <i>Enter The Dragon</i> when he exited this earth.</span><strong style="line-height: 1.4em;"> </strong></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;">The dragon blesses. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;">but exacts a horrible price. </span></span></div>
<br /></div>
</address>
<div style="line-height: 1.4em; max-width: 99.9%;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif; line-height: 1.4em; text-align: justify;">Someone has said Bruce had the luck of the Dragon, but it came with a </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 1.4em;">price. It has been said that Bruce </span></span>On July 20, 1973, Bruce Lee was going over the </span><em style="font-family: "times new roman", times, serif;">Game of Death</em><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"> story in the apartment of actress Betty Ting Pei. When he complained of a bad headache, she gave him </span><span class="pwa pwa2 pwa-color pwa-red" data-category="grammarspelling" data-help="SIMPLE_SPELLING" data-index="6" data-original-text="Equegsia" data-report="grammar" data-sub-category="Equegsia" data-suggestions="" data-tag-id="33cd58dc-1453-4f43-8a5a-932ee8506c9e" data-urls="" data-x-title="Unknown word: Equegsia" pwa-editor-id="" pwa-tag="" style="border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(201, 81, 63); float: none; font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Equegsia</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;">, a super aspirin/muscle relaxer, and he lay down and went to sleep and never woke up. This was not the first time Bruce Lee had gotten a bad headache and went into a coma. Just that May before he died, Bruce collapsed in the bathroom at the Hong Kong studio where he was editing the finishing scenes of </span><em style="font-family: "times new roman", times, serif;">Enter the Dragon</em><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;">. The doctors were able to revive him. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif; line-height: 1.4em;">Doctors were unable to revive him in July. The cause of the May incident was also the official cause of death in July: brain edema, which is when the brain swells against the skull and is almost always fatal. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 1.4em; max-width: 99.9%;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;">Was it the dragon roaring? </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;">Or merely coincidence? Or synchronicity?</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;">—events that shouldn't be related, but are—</span></div>
<ul class="font_9" style="line-height: 1.4em;">
<li><address style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em; max-width: 99.9%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Bruce Lee was a child actor</span></span></address>
</li>
<li><address style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em; max-width: 99.9%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Brandon appeared in one of his father's movies</span></span></address>
</li>
</ul>
<ul class="font_9" style="line-height: 1.4em;">
<li><address style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em; max-width: 99.9%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;">In 1970c, </span><span style="color: black; font-style: normal;">Bruce went to Hong Kong to jump-start his movie career</span></span></address>
</li>
<li><address style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em; max-width: 99.9%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif; font-style: normal;">In 1986, Brandon Lee went to Hong Kong to jump-start his movie career</span></address>
</li>
</ul>
<ul class="font_9" style="line-height: 1.4em;">
<li><address style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em; max-width: 99.9%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif; font-style: normal;">Bruce had a short TV career: </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;">The Green Hornet, Ironside, Longstreet, Batman</span></address>
</li>
<li><address style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em; max-width: 99.9%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif; font-style: normal;">Ditto Brandon: </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;">K</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;">ung Fu: The Movie; Kung Fu: The Next Generation, O'Hara</span></address>
</li>
</ul>
<ul class="font_9" style="line-height: 1.4em;">
<li><address style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em; max-width: 99.9%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;">In </span>Game of Death, <span style="font-style: normal;">Bruce played an actor who was shot by a live bullet onset.</span></span></address>
</li>
<li><address style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em; max-width: 99.9%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;">In </span>The Crow<span style="font-style: normal;">, Brandon played an actor who was shot by a lead tip</span></span></address>
</li>
</ul>
<ul class="font_9" style="line-height: 1.4em;">
<li><address style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em; max-width: 99.9%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif; font-style: normal;">Bruce died before </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;">Game of Death</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif; font-style: normal;"> wrapped</span></address>
</li>
<li><address style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em; max-width: 99.9%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif; font-style: normal;">Brand died before </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;">The Crow</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif; font-style: normal;"> wrapped</span></address>
</li>
</ul>
<ul class="font_9" style="line-height: 1.4em;">
<li><address style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em; max-width: 99.9%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif; font-style: normal;">Bruce died of brain edema due to an allergic reaction to a super aspirin</span></address>
</li>
<li><address style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em; max-width: 99.9%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif; font-style: normal;">Brandon died of a gunshot fired from a prop gun</span></address>
</li>
</ul>
<ul class="font_9" style="line-height: 1.4em;">
<li><address style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em; max-width: 99.9%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif; font-style: normal;">Bruce supposedly foretold his own death</span></address>
</li>
<li><address style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em; max-width: 99.9%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif; font-style: normal;">Brandon allegedly whispered about a premonition of dying young on a movie set.</span></address>
</li>
</ul>
<ul class="font_9" style="line-height: 1.4em;"></ul>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; margin: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Brandon Lee went on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno and called the curse "hype." </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Perhaps it was, but something was afoot in the Lee family.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; margin: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 1.4em; max-width: 99.9%;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;">2. CURSE OF <i>THE CROW</i></span></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 1.4em; max-width: 99.9%;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;">If you think living under one curse is terrible, what about the shadows of three?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;">Movies are not just something static that you film. Making movies is not the same kind of work as washing dishes in a greasy spoon or assembling parts in a factory. Movies have a life of their own, an entity, a personality that affects everything and everyone involved. Any Hollywood player will tell you that some films do not want to be made, and if you force the filming, strange things are apt to occur. I give you </span><em style="font-family: "times new roman", times, serif;">The Poltergeist</em><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;">. So many weird things happened during that filming that a priest was actually called in to exorcise the set.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><span style="line-height: normal;">Not all curses evoke the paranormal. Sometimes the properties are ordinary incidents, but when a series of things happen, you have to go Hmmm... and wonder, as it was during the filming of <i>The Crow</i>... So many accidents happened </span><span style="line-height: normal;">that some said the movie was cursed. What few people know is that a chilling shadow fell across the film even before production began. Just shortly after the production office opened in LA, an assistant received an anonymous phone call warning that<i> </i></span><i>The Crow</i> <span style="line-height: normal;">should not be made. Why? No one knows, nor will they ever. It was chalked up as a prank, but in light of the movie's strange happenings and tragedy, again, one wonders...</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 1.4em; max-width: 99.9%;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><span style="line-height: normal;"><br /></span></span><em style="font-family: "times new roman", times, serif;">The Crow</em><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"> was born out of tragedy. James O'Barr wrote the comic as therapy after his girlfriend was killed in a hit-and-run accident. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;">Was this movie, born from tragedy, destined to tragedy? </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><span class="pwa pwa2 pwa-color pwa-red" data-category="grammarspelling" data-help="SIMPLE_SPELLING" data-index="7" data-original-text="tragedy?The" data-report="grammar" data-sub-category="tragedy?The" data-suggestions="" data-tag-id="4eb8ceae-4876-4927-92b9-d3ff1f66121c" data-urls="" data-x-title="Unknown word: tragedy?The" pwa-editor-id="" pwa-tag="" style="border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(201, 81, 63); float: none; font-family: inherit "important"; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span class="pwa pwa1 pwa-color pwa-blue" data-category="grammargrammar" data-help="WHITESPACE" data-index="1" data-original-text="?" data-report="grammar" data-sub-category="?" data-suggestions="?" data-tag-id="122544f4-1e41-4102-9e78-5e54388aa2b1" data-urls="" data-x-title="The punctuation mark '?' may require a space after it. Consider adding the space." pwa-editor-id="" pwa-tag="" style="border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(68, 101, 196); float: none; font-family: inherit "important"; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 1.4em; max-width: 99.9%;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"></span></div>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;">A Carpenter stumbled and drove a screwdriver through his hand</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;">A worker in a cherry picker was electrocuted, spending days in the hospital</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;">A stunt worker fell through the roof of a set building</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;">A hurricane swept through and destroyed many sets</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;">An angry worker drove his truck through the sculpting studio</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;">Brandon Bruce Lee was shot dead by a prop gun</span></li>
</ul>
<ul></ul>
What of the birds used in the film? Did their mystic spirits conjure mischief on the set? A<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;">t the dawn of man, the crow was a dream carrier who became a goddess who became a god; and, in the middle ages, the crow symbolized despair and chaos and death. But I'll tell you right now, that's bull, folks. The trained birds were actually ravens, chosen because their kind is smarter and easier to train and work with. And they proved their reps, flying true through constant cold and rain to perform stunts with hardly a peck or a squawk. No angry animal spirits there Right? Still... you never know, do you?</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><b> </b></span><br />
<div style="line-height: 1.4em; max-width: 99.9%;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;">Was </span><em style="font-family: "times new roman", times, serif;">The Crow</em><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"> cursed? </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;">Was it so angry about being raped on film that it killed Brandon Lee?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;">You be the judge.</span></div>
<h4>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><strong style="line-height: 33.6px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">3. Curse of Ian Curtis and the Joy Division</span></strong></span></h4>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;">Hark! </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;">I ran across this tidbit on the Brandon Lee page at <a href="https://findadeath.com/" target="_blank">findadeath</a></span><a href="http://www.findadeath.com/Deceased/l/Brandon%20Lee/brandon_lee.htm" style="font-family: "times new roman", times, serif;"><span style="color: #073763;"> </span></a><span style="color: #073763; font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;">I searched the </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;">Internet over with a fine-toothed mouse and couldn't find another word about it. </span><span class="pwa pwa1 pwa-color pwa-red" data-category="grammarspelling" data-help="SIMPLE_SPELLING" data-index="10" data-original-text="Yahooo" data-report="grammar" data-sub-category="Yahooo" data-suggestions="Yahoo" data-tag-id="f1da6b34-7e24-4e89-82d0-b0e50705bc58" data-urls="" data-x-title="Unknown word: Yahooo" pwa-editor-id="" pwa-tag="" style="border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(201, 81, 63); float: none; font-family: inherit "important"; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Yahoo</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;">! Answers members advised me to put my bong down. And some dude said he believed Ian Curtis's death was connected to Kurt Cobain's but didn't offer a word of explanation.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"> </span><span class="pwa pwa1 pwa-color pwa-red" data-category="grammarspelling" data-help="SIMPLE_SPELLING" data-index="11" data-original-text="Grrr" data-report="grammar" data-sub-category="Grrr" data-suggestions="Gray,Grey,Gary,Error,Greg" data-tag-id="85a267d0-57e7-4c78-a0c0-d211e66f9f6d" data-urls="" data-x-title="Unknown word: Grrr" pwa-editor-id="" pwa-tag="" style="border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(201, 81, 63); float: none; font-family: inherit "important"; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Grrr</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;">. Ian </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;">Curtis was depressed about having epilepsy and personal problems and he did hang himself in his kitchen while listening to Iggy Pop's Idiot—they say. And allegedly, his friends and anyone associated with him began dropping like flies. I mean, there are people who will not watch <i>The Crow</i> because James O'Barr used Joy Division's Dead Soul lyrics in his comic book and Nine Inch Nails covered the hit, <i>Dead Souls</i>, on<i> The Crow</i> soundtrack.</span><div><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-align: center;"> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-align: center;"> </div></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3991120675471885568.post-22352580450357652562018-11-04T20:07:00.005-08:002021-09-16T18:16:45.364-07:00Death by Misadventure<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<img border="0" data-original-height="350" data-original-width="350" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEEoJ2a4h-1kcNvqWCMhKFABoZ_tz56BOj9uCenejNRYYPV4MsuSFvuBY8Dm8fB_b35OdgehzbxzhHiSr54NKUZVh8usEgi_TWtnPkgGH0OsrE9Mvo40-SVf2uGPL9SrKlU4a-lW_9geL9/s320/HEADER.jpg" width="320" /></div>
So the father rose and made his early exit, so the son also rose and made his own premature exit.<br />
<br />
What are the odds that all these almost identical events were a coincidence? It is not true that Bruce Lee died while filming Game of Death. As we have already discussed, he had filmed the fight scenes and put them on hold until Enter the Dragon wrapped. After his death, the production company wrote the script to go with the fight scenes, added pieces of his other films, and hired a Bruce Lee lookalike to perform in different scenes. But without the master's hand, the Game of Death bombed. In the movie, the lead character, Billy Lo, is an actor starring in a film about an actor who is shot—and reported killed—by a prop gun, the dummy bullet having been replaced with a live round by the Chinese mafia. Game Of Death was released in 1975; eighteen years later, Brandon Lee was shot and killed on <i>The Crow</i> set by a prop gun, the details for which we will get into then. Was Brandon Lee's death accidental—or was he ritualistically murdered? Before we go to either of those places, let's visit the scene of the tragedy.<br />
<br />
Wilmington, North Carolina, 1223 N. 23rd Street, Carolco (now Screen Gems) Studios, Stage 4, Wednesday, March 31, 1993, shortly after midnight, wearing a leather jacket, snug cords, black boots, a tee with his character's rock band, Hangman's Joke, emblazoned on the front, carrying a grocery bag with a blood squib inside, Brandon Bruce Lee as Eric Draven opens the prop door, steps onto the loft set, before the rolling cameras. Michael Massee's character Boom! (mag booms, it doesn't bang). The squib discharges, splattering fake blood and milk from a carton inside the grocery bag. Brandon/Eric grabs his stomach, spins around, and slides down to sit on the floor, with his back against a corner of the wall. This was not the way they had rehearsed the scene, but everyone thought Brandon had just changed things on the spur of the moment, as he often did. Director Proyas yelled, "Cut!" But Brandon did not get up. Everyone thought he was pulling a prank as he usually did. The cast and crew went on filming. It took a while for anyone to realize that something had gone terribly wrong. Funboy, who is raping Shelly, whirls, waves and aims a 44 Magnum prop revolver at Eric, and pulls the trigger.<br />
<br />
Brandon was not playing with them.<br />
<br />
Brandon's best friend and stunt coordinator, Jeff Imada thought that Brandon had simply hit his head against the wall and had knocked himself out. He and others walked over and began talking to Brandon, who just sat there with a blank look in his gray eyes. Brandon's leather jacket was removed, and they saw a tear in his T-shirt. They pulled it up and discovered a scratch to the right of his navel. There was very little blood. So they waited, frozen, as the medic, Clyde Baisey, worked on Brandon. Someone called 911.<br />
<br />
Paramedics slipped him into pressure pants to push all of his blood toward his heart and brain and lungs and rushed him to New Hanover Regional Medical Center. Thirty minutes had passed since the shooting. When he was as stable as they could hope for in that situation, he was rushed to the OR. The surgeon, Dr. Warren W. McMurry, discovered that the projectile had entered the abdomen just below and to the right of the belly button, punched through all those organs, where it doglegs into the arteries that supply blood to the legs and slammed into the spine. Had it entered a fraction to the left or right, Brandon Lee might have survived his wound. He spent five hours on the operating table, doctors trying desperately in vain to staunch the internal bleeding, but Brandon's vascular system had been devastated, and the blood poured out, oozing from every orifice as fast as they could pump it back in. He was eventually transfused with sixty pints of blood—enough for five grown men. Brandon Bruce Lee, the son, brother, friend, fiancée, actor, martial artist, a budding guitarist, died at 1:03 P.M., some twelve and one-half hours after the..44 lead tip slammed twisting into him. through the area of the aorta<br />
<br />
Jeff Imada contacted Eliza Hutton and told her that Brandon had been in an accident and she needed to fly<br />
out pronto. At first, Eliza thought it was one of Brandon's famous pranks, but Imada finally convinced her that it was not. She flew out and was present at the hospital when Brandon was pronounced dead.<br />
<br />
Because of flight schedules, it took Linda Lee Cadwell and Brandon's sister, Shannon Lee Keasler a whole day to reach Wilmington, and they arrived well after Brandon died. Jeff and Eliza met their plane and gave them the news. Their son and brother were gone.<br />
<br />
Brandon was laid to rest on April 3, 1993, beside his father, at Lakeview Cemetery, in Seattle,<br />
<br />
Washington. The next day, a memorial service was hosted at family friend Polly Bergen's home in Beverly Hills.<br />
<br />
Members of <i>The Crow's cast</i> and crew, David Carradine, Kiefer Sutherland, Lou Diamond Phillips, Steven Seagal, and David Hasselhoff, among others, attended. Brandon's close friend Melissa<br />
Etheridge sang.<br />
<br />
Why? How could The Crow's firewall have burnt out so tragically? Accident or design?<br />
<br />
Why wasn't production following standard industry guidelines? To wit, anyone within 20 feet of a firearm must wear protection. The .44 Magnum revolver was fired some 12 to 16 feet from Brandon Lee. Why wasn't Brandon wearing a bulletproof vest? He reportedly said "If it's my time to go, I'll go," and refused to wear one. <br />
<br />
Did the fact that the Weapons Expert, Jim Moyer, was let go and the special effects guy, J.B. Jones doubled as the weapons supervisor have any bearing on the fatal shooting? Bet your grits, it did. According to Wilmington Police Detective Brian Pettus, Jones and his crew knew nothing about weapons!<br />
<br />
Weapons and effects experts caution actors to point their guns away from their human target, and then directors can later make the aim appear dead-target. Why didn't they do that on <i>The Crow</i>? Time and money, babydoll. Budget and production were by all accounts running overtime, and they were cutting corners to mop up. <br />
<br />
Was production indeed past its deadline? Wikipedia's The Crow film page says Brandon was killed on day 50 of the allotted 60-day shoot. But in Bridget Baiss's <i>The Crow</i>: The Story Behind the Film. Associate Producer Gregory A. Gale says the production was 8 days over the deadline. Mr. Gale should know. If the filming had been on time, this last shooting scene would have occurred on day 42, and who knows what might have been, or rather, what might not.<br />
<br />
Was <i>The Crow running</i> way over budget? A movie is a pie sliced into department wedges—Props, Weapons, Special Effects, Stunts, Wardrobe, Photography, Salary, Catering, etc., including Contingency—emergency—money, which they were running through fast, according to Producer Jeff Most. They were trying to make a 30 million dollar movie with a 14 million dollar budget. And the budget watchdogs were getting antsy. Why do you think they hadn't hired a medic until the set became accident-prone? Why do you believe Weapons Expert Jim Moyer was let go? The loft scene was the last shoot-up, a relatively tame effect, and production didn't think they needed him on the set, and they were trying to save time and money.<br />
<br /><i>
The Crow'</i>s non-union workers were worked long and hard in frigid air and icy rain. Little Rochelle Davis, then 13, who played Sarah, was worked longer than any child actor should have been. At night. They worked from sunset to sunup and sometimes beyond. They would go to their rentals and hit the hay about 9am and sleep all day, day, and night after day and night, six days a week. Humans aren't nocturnal creatures; they do not have the \systems of owls or opossums or Ozzy Osbourne. Humans were built on rising with the birds, working hard, and retiring early. When you start a regimen of sleeping days and working nights, it throws your body out of whack. You don't rest as well sleeping during the day; blackout curtains can't fool your body's clock. So, you are not going to be as sharp and chipper; your brain is not going to be as warm; night after night after night. On the 50th day of this, you are going to be headed toward big mistakes, and somebody goofed up big time. And if the rumor of cocaine on the set true, why, that just compounds the recklessness of it all, doesn't it?<br />
<br />
Here's a quote from Premiere Magazine, July 1993<br />
<br />
Craig Fincannon of Fincannon & Associates, who did some of the castings for The Crow, says Wilmington, NC, is an ideal place to make movies (paraphrased). Translation: it's a place to make movies cheap, the Hollywood equivalent of making tennis shoes in Taiwan. While many workers in Wilmington are as highly trained as their brethren in New York and L. A, North Carolina is a right-to-work state, no unions necessary. Wages are lower, rules relaxed, and there are no fringe benefits to pay. Producers can save 20 or 30 percent on labor costs. It's one of the big reasons why North Carolina was second in film production revenues in the United States in 1990, pumping more than $400 million into the local economy. Fifty features have been shot there since 1983, including Super Mario Bros, and the forthcoming Hucksucker Proxy. And with the current trend in Hollywood toward independent films, the whole place is beginning to smell like a boomtown. But for many in Wilmington who make their living in the movie business, it's a mixed blessing. They all know the primary reason producers come here is that it's cheap, and workers have no recourse against demands for long hours and low wages. "You know that sometimes you're being exploited," says one Wilmington veteran. "But nobody wants to stand up and say anything about it for fear of scaring business away." Attempts at unionizing have been rebuffed. "The real problem is that people down there believe that if they start to demand higher wages and better working conditions," says Bryan Unger, an organizer for the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees in New York, " they'll stop making movies there." (This same fear, in fact, is the reason most crew members on the production declined to be quoted by name for this article.)<br />
<br />
How in the name of all that is holy did that lead tip come to be in the prop gun? <br />
<br />
That's what Pettus, who was treating the death as a homicide until it could be proven otherwise, asked people at the hospital, including Massee; members of the crew, including the prop masters Daniel Kuttner and Tantar Leviser, and J.B. Jones, the special effects guy playing weapons expert that fatal hour.<br />
<br />
All of them knew what probably happened, but all anyone would say was that they had no idea what happened. They knew that if what they perceived as the truth got out, heads would roll from Wilmington to LA. So they plead the out-of-court Fifth—Cover Your Butt—but someone got a case of the guilts and Pettus began to obtain anonymous information. It all came out, eventually, of course, as it always does. What it boiled down to was that they were out of dummies and blanks and not one gun shop had any on hand. Why would they keep something not even occasionally in demand? The weapons crew could have ordered what they needed from any gun shop in LA, but that meant time and money. So they bought boxes of live rounds and made the blanks themselves! They removed the lead tips with pliers, shook out the black powder and detonated the caps at the butt of the bullets with a hammer, and then they put the lead tips back on. Looked like live rounds, but were impotent. They also needed full loads for the close-ups, and they made those too. To make the blanks they completed the procedure above, except they added a little black powder for that Hollywood shoot em up flash. <br />
<br />
Pettus thought the fatal error had occurred during the making of the dummies and the blanks. Where else could a mistake have been made? One of two things may have happened. Just a rumor: crew members were playing around with that gun off set, but the homicide cop believes it happened during the close-up prep. <br />
<br />
They shot the film of the six dummy bullets in the chamber. The six bullets looked just as real as live rounds on film. They aimed a camera down the barrel and filmed the chamber as it rotated and somehow clipped the lead tip off of one bullet and that tip became lodged in the forcing cone. Looking at the chamber load, you see all the bullets but had someone looked on the other side, they would have plainly seen that one bullet was missing its lead tip. But no one bothered to look, and it cost Brandon Lee his life.<br />
<br />
But... but is this what really happened? Is the police report on target? <br />
<br />
The fact is no one but a few—and they haven't come forward—know the history of that.44 Magnum. Rumor is that a cast member was using it for target practice a day or so before the fatal shooting, and just put it back where he/she got it without cleaning it. Another rumor is crew members were playing cops and robbers with the mag and failed to clean it before they put it up. Another speculation is that someone exchanged the prop gun with another revolver. Whatever the case, the fact remains that it was a special effects man, playing weapons expert, J.B. Jones's responsibility to make the shooting scene safe. Jones should not have taken the job but told them, "Look, I'm just a special effects guy, I don't know beans about firearms. You better bring Moyer back." But Jones did take the job, and when you take a job, you shoulder the responsibility that comes with it. It was his responsibility to check that.44 Magnum hog, open the chamber, look at both sides, and peer down the barrel before it ever touched Massee's fingers. Why did Jones take the job? Money and power. Why didn't Jones do his job? How could he? He didn't know anything about weapons, in the first place! That's why! Time and money and incompetence—greed—killed Brandon Bruce Lee as surely as that bullet did... unless, of course, he was murdered,<br />
<div>
<br /></div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3991120675471885568.post-45036684872836921812018-11-04T19:42:00.007-08:002021-09-16T18:18:32.696-07:00Rumors of Murder<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href=" " style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="350" data-original-width="250" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYwbeheN-DWfpPBMVt5on2rxEsoqpUjChmq9hoWZLQ7xO1nain8kYUpI0RHC6HWUPszNFqVkEcWWTMalGrXXTVvZN3MvtE304dSrcayEe9tTwCBzWCRE5_Wr086baKzBaSWOtd3-THZy6v/w284-h400/A+Joe.jpg" width="284" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<span face=""arial" , sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><div><span face=""arial" , sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><br /></span></div>Was Brandon Bruce Lee murdered?</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12pt;">
<span face=""arial" , sans-serif" style="color: #222222;">
<br />
Why?<br />
<br />
What motive?<br />
<br />
Does there have to a reason? Of course not. There are human
monsters out there who kill for no other reason than the pleasure of their
gonads. I give you Mark David Chapman, Ted Bundy, David Berkowitz, Wayne
Williams and other members of the thrill kill scum club.<br />
<br />
Even as production was in the planning stage in LA, news got out that Brandon
Lee would play Eric Draven in the goth-like movie, <i>The Crow.</i> Remember
the anonymous caller who warned production against making <i>The Crow</i>?
There was a concern that some nut might be after legendary martial artist and
actor Bruce Lee's son, and who knows? Maybe that is just what happened.
But I doubt it very seriously. That variety of nut is usually a loner who
relies on no one but himself. No, a loon would have caught Brandon in the gym
parking lot or shown up at his door and done the deed himself a la Robert John
Bardo who killed Rebecca Schaeffer when she answered his knock.<br />
<br />
Here's a list of prospective culprits.<br />
<br /><b>
GREED/ENVY</b>. Definition: when one wants more than one needs and is grieved by
what others have. Every crime that has ever been committed boils down to
greed and envy. I don't care if its theft, rape, or murder, greed, and
envy back it. Money and power ignite it like nobody's business.<i> The
Crow</i> was going overtime and over-budget, the leading man was not as
famous as, say, River Phoenix, it was being directed by a music video cowboy
Alex Proyas, who had never directed a movie before—the success of the film had
to have been of concern. Did someone go to the lengths and breadths of killing
Brandon to make <i>The Crow</i> rock? His death indeed went into
making Brandon Lee a legend and <i>The Crow</i> a cult hit. When Vic
Morrow left, died on the set of <i>The Twilight Zone</i>, a Hollywood
producer said—admittedly tongue-in-cheek "I'd kill for a break like
that."</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span face=""arial" , sans-serif" style="color: #222222;"><b>ASIAN CULTURE</b>.
What about the Chinese Tong mafia? Did they kill Brandon—and Bruce—for revealing ancient Chinese
martial art secrets to the Western world—or white devils, as
they refer to us? Bruce Lee's official cause of death was brain edema—not an aneurysm, as is posted on one certain site.
Bruce's brain swelled so tight against his skull that it killed
him. What caused the swelling? Allergic reaction to
Equegesia, a super aspirin? Or the so-called touch of death—a mysterious
martial art move that can kill with a mere touch of the hand. Another site
claims that as good as Bruce was, he had to have been hit in the head many
times during his fight scenes and workouts. And then you have Chuck Norris who
said Bruce Lee was untouchable. I tend to believe Norris. Bruce Lee was so fast
that he had to be filmed in slo-mo during his Green Hornet days. Otherwise, he
would have been a chop-kick flash across the screen. When Bruce opened his
first situ in Seattle, Chinese martial artists came to him and ordered him to
close it. He challenged them to a contest: he would fight their best, and if
their guy won, Bruce would close shop, but if Bruce won, he would not close,
and they would say no more about it. All agreed. And Bruce won, natch. And nothing
more was said about it, but... some people are poor losers... could they have
in fact set in motion not only the death of Bruce Lee but Brandon's twenty
years later? Twenty years is a long time, but remember, Brandon was just on the
brink of superstardom when he died. Did the tong nip Brandon in the bud?</span><br />
<span face=""arial" , sans-serif" style="color: #222222;"><br /></span><span face=""arial" , sans-serif" style="color: #222222;"><b>NEO-NAZIS</b>. Could Asian-Hating Neo-Nazis have killed Brandon
because he was the product of an interracial union and had the gall—in
their twisted estimation—to flaunt it by not only dating but living and becoming engaged to a white woman, Eliza Hutton, who, BTW, was part Mexican?
Heh.<br /><br /><b>
REVENGE</b>. Did Brandon Lee do something or see something he wasn't supposed
to while filming <i>The Crow</i>—or elsewhere—that ignited a dead-bang
shut up? Possible. Let me tell you about the real Brandon. What you saw was
what you got, babydoll. Nothing fake about him. He seldom hit the Hollywood
scene, and not the tiniest bit of scandal mars his unique name.<br />
<br />
Findadeath webmaster, Scott Michaels, can dig dirt like a mole and isn't too
shy to throw it. His Brandon Lee page is comparable to 16 pages of printout,
and there is not one word of scandal anywhere. Brandon kicked butt on camera
and off. Not long before his death, he caught a burglar red-handed in his Echo Park home. Brandon could have turned and run out the door; he could have said:
"Take whatever you want, just please don't hurt me." Ha! Not Brandon.
No, he put the creep in the hospital. Another incident happened during a <i>Crow</i> production
dinner. Everyone was there, including Brandon's fiancée Eliza Hutton, who was
hired as his assistant. One of the stars, Michael Wincott (Top Dollar) thought
Brandon was too weak, sweet, and cute to play a strong character like Draven.
At the table that night, this actor was cursing about something or other when
Brandon Bruce Lee shot to his feet, leaned across the plates and got right in
this guy's face and said: "Don't use that kind of language when there are
ladies present." The curser changed his mind quickly about Brandon. What
I'm saying is that Brandon was not a fake, milquetoast, whiner—he was cute,
though. He was brave and passionate about his principles. He was a man. So it's
possible he might have stood up to someone coasting with one hubcap missing. It
happens. It's a chance you take when you take up for yourself or try to get
justice for the wronged. But you have to be true to yourself and others, don't
you? Of course, </span><span face=""arial" , sans-serif" style="background: white; color: #222222;">your garden variety redneck
bigot—not exclusive to the South—KKK mindset. I surfed onto a forum a few
years ago dedicated to Eliza Hutton. </span><span face=""arial" , sans-serif" style="background: white; color: #cf1414;"><a href="http://www.voy.com/6508/222.html"><span style="color: #888888;">RE: Eliza—the Cathedral</span></a></span><span face=""arial" , sans-serif" style="background: white; color: black;">.</span><span face=""arial" , sans-serif" style="background: white; color: #cf1414;"> </span><span face=""arial" , sans-serif" style="background: white; color: #222222;"> You'll have to hunt for it—if the post
hasn't been deleted by the admin. Some jerk named Mike wrote that he was glad
Brandon Lee was dead because Brandon stole a white woman. And they both got
what they deserved. He went on to warn Asians to leave white women alone. I am
usually polite on these sites, but this was an exception. I let him have
it with both barrels. I called him a racist pig, an SOB, and a slimeball, for
good measure. I'm one-sixteenth Cherokee, raised white, married to a Mexican,
so my blood was boiling. I also put a Chinese curse on him. Heh. Anyway, could
one of these pigs have done the deed, or had it done? A little far out, right?
Well, a father poisoning his two children's soup is pretty far out there too,
but it happened, in the state of Georgia, I might add. Lots of far-out things
happen all the time.</span><span face=""arial" , sans-serif" style="color: #222222;"><br />
<span style="background: white;"><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span face=""arial" , sans-serif" style="color: #222222;"><b>Eliza</b>. Yeah, right. But
there are actually some people out there—waaaay out there—who believe
Eliza was involved in a conspiracy to kill Brandon Lee. Uh,
why? To nab his worldly goods and dough? I don't think
so. Lots of her accusers are women who fancy themselves in
love with Brandon and are jealous of Eliza. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span face=""arial" , sans-serif" style="color: #222222;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span face=""arial" , sans-serif" style="color: #222222;"><b>Linda</b>. Urm, Really, come on!
But there are people, including RE Payne, PI (below), who believe she
had her own son murdered for his life insurance and estate assets.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span face=""arial" , sans-serif" style="color: #222222;"><b>Illuminati</b>. Allegedly an unblinking all-seeing eye, a secret
global government, a New World Order, an evil, black dog watching the world
with a reptilian eye, waiting to spring into action, to incite war and chaos,
to kill, to further their means. What means? World rule—as in the Fourth Reich.
What is more, a branch of the Illuminati allegedly controls the USA government.
When a new president goes into office, they reveal Duh! LOL!! Illuminati
is supposedly responsible for igniting every major event in history (from the
downfall of Adam and Eve to the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ) and in modern
times—Abraham Lincoln, Jack the Ripper, John F. Kennedy, Bruce Lee, Tupac
Shakur, Princess Diana, John F. Kennedy Jr., Michael Jackson, and the list goes
on and on. </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">This last theory is
the most bizarre of all. I mean, I thought I had heard everything. Obviously
not. And I'm not particularly happy to find it. It's spooky, to say the least.
No ghost I've ever seen or heard in broad daylight has ever
disturbed me like the Illuminati conspiracy. And I'm not going to go into
an in-depth expose about it. If you want more, you greedy thing—just
kidding—Google it. Uh, scratch that. A69 says "The
Illuminati is a secret society within a secret society!!! In 1785 they were
banned because it was believed that they wanted to overthrow the kings in
Europe as well as the pope." There is a lot of speculation on their
activities, i.e., The French and American revolution were started by
them!!!! </span><span face=""arial" , sans-serif" style="color: #222222;">Why kill Kennedy and
Michael Jackson, much less the Lees? Allegedly, the Kennedy family and the Lee
family are somehow or other in the Illuminati lineage. Why would they kill
their own? Perhaps JFK and the Lees broke the rules or refused to bend
to Illuminati power. If you ask me, this is a big fat bull pattie </span><span face=""arial" , sans-serif" style="color: #222222;"><span face=""arial" , sans-serif">themselves and say, "You do it our way or you die." And
everybody blamed W. Bush for the Iraqi war. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span face=""arial" , sans-serif" style="color: #222222;">All members are
educated on</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"> the following
principles:</span><span face=""arial" , sans-serif" style="color: #222222;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 3pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in; text-indent: 0in;"><span face=""arial" , sans-serif" style="color: #222222;">U must be free of all
religion </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 3pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in; text-indent: 0in;"><span face=""arial" , sans-serif" style="color: #222222;">The end justifies the
means</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 3pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in; text-indent: 0in;"><span face=""arial" , sans-serif" style="color: #222222;">The Pater Exitus
(doctrine on suicide</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 3pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in; text-indent: 0in;"><span face=""arial" , sans-serif" style="color: #222222;">Submission to the
Superiors of the Illuminati</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 3pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in; text-indent: 0in;"><span face=""arial" , sans-serif" style="color: #222222;">The Love of one's
prince and country (the ultimate ends)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">"If I tell u
anymore I have to kill u!!!"</span><span face=""arial" , sans-serif" style="color: #222222;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Uhhh... Thanks, A69! I
call cow pattie, but an interesting take ... Still... according to
Wikipedia.com, the Illuminati does exist. Check it out. (But keep in mind that
Wikipedia and IMDb are not the holy grail of Brandon Lee—or any other subject
matter.)</span><span face=""arial" , sans-serif" style="color: #222222;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">"Anyway, the set
was in a vast old cement factory in the middle of winter. No electricity, no
heat and hardly any light, even during the day. People were cramping up and
having to be taken to hospitals sometimes</span><span face=""arial" , sans-serif" style="color: #222222;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">"Actors were
arguing with the crew, producers, and director. It was a harsh environment
waiting for a big accident to happen. My girlfriend and I quit because of the
conditions...</span><span face=""arial" , sans-serif" style="color: #222222;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">"I was there for
the interview with Brandon]. Lee, you see on the DVD. We all were hushed, and
people were shaking from the cold. This was such accident. Oh, but I did get
to hang with the black Ghostbuster for a couple of hours though."</span><span face=""arial" , sans-serif" style="color: #222222;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Great info,
southrules!</span><span face=""arial" , sans-serif" style="color: #222222;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Gina T writes
"I've just finished reading your article (GunSmoke) about motives for the
possible murder of Brandon Lee. Honestly, I'm in 2 minds here. One side of me,
for a peaceful life, wants to believe that Brandon's death was an
accident. "But lately, I've been pondering about the moneymaking
aspects of killing the lead star in a classic "art imitates life."
scenario. I mean what better way to turn the film into a cult classic than to
have the leading man in the movie die shortly before he was to marry his fiancée
just like in the movie. It seems a bit far-fetched, but people have committed the
most horrendous acts for less. "Btw the only reason I would let his
Mom off the hook, and I really don't think she wanted to kill her son, is
because court cases take FOREVER to solve so a settlement may have been her best
option. However, I heard that she sold all of Brandon's things shortly after
his death and that Eliza Hutton was appalled at her for doing so.</span><span face=""arial" , sans-serif" style="color: #222222;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">"It's good to
remember that simply because there's no evidence of a crime, it doesn't [mean
one hasn't been committed]."</span><span face=""arial" , sans-serif" style="color: #222222;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Thanks for the great
comment!</span><span face=""arial" , sans-serif" style="color: #222222;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">So, what do you think?
Was Brandon Lee murdered? Evidence? Hollywood has become the modern-day Olympus
populated with demigod stars. And when one of them dies young, it's hard for us
mere mortals to believe that such an icon could die from something so... mortal
as Elvis dying on the throne or Jim Morrison overdosing in a bathtub in Paris
or Brandon Lee dropping dead from a prop gun goof. And I will tell you right
now that the odds are—of all the rumors of death hoax and murder flying
around—one dead star is really alive.</span><span face=""arial" , sans-serif" style="color: #222222;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Brandon Lee is really
dead—I believe that with all my heart—but was he murdered? What is my opinion?
I think it is highly likely that, in the least, the whole truth was never
revealed to the public—or even to the authorities, there is an absolute no
evidence that Brandon Lee was murdered.</span><span face=""arial" , sans-serif" style="color: #222222;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Or is there? </span><span face=""arial" , sans-serif" style="color: #222222;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">R. E. Payne, PI, says there is evidence of murder. He claims to
have done an extensive investigation into Brandon Lee's death, interviewing hesitant, often scared witnesses. He goes on to say
that the reason the truth was covered up was nothing more than greed; everyone
from the police to the movie company executives was bribed and Linda Lee
Cadwell's quick settlement stopped any investigation that might have been done
by honest detectives, reporters, whoever. Didn't stop Payne though. Payne can't
be bought. But Payne is making money selling a CD with hard evidence on it, he
claims. I didn't buy the CD for two reasons. One: for the same reason I don't
have a cell phone (until text mode came into vogue)--I'm stone-cold deaf, so
voice and audio devices are out; and two: I've heard that the CD, while
interesting, doesn't shed a bit of light, much less evidence of murder. Come
on! If Payne had hard evidence that Brandon Lee was murdered, he or someone
would have turned it over to the police, and they would have instigated an
investigation.</span><span face=""arial" , sans-serif" style="color: #222222;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Brandon Lee fan, Kris
Whip, "I once read [in a death rumor article in Martial Arts Illustrated
that Brandon was killed as part of a love triangle with him, Eliza and an
an unknown man who killed him. Another rumor was that he had discovered something
about his dad's death and the triads had silenced him like they had
Bruce,"</span><span face=""arial" , sans-serif" style="color: #222222;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">A great addition to this
page! Thanks, Kris!</span><span face=""arial" , sans-serif" style="color: #222222;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Two questions. Was the
projectile a lead tip or was it, in fact, a life.44 Magnum bullet? A live
bullet would have blown a quarter-size (some say half-dollar size hole in
Brandon's abdomen—according to People (Monday, April 19, 1993). And where did
they get their information? Was it a misprint? Or did a member of cast or crew
lie about being on the scene and seeing the wound? If so, they were lying
because the entrance, according to Jeff Imada, was a mere scratch. I believe
Mr. Imada. And tend to think the projectile was, in fact, a lead tip. Why?
How could a killer pull off a murder? One way, and one way only: the killer
hired an insider—unless the killer was an insider—a member of the crew or even
the cast who managed, in a hurry and scurry of the set activity, to insert
the lead tip into the chamber and pop the tipless bullet into an empty slot.
Had it been discovered before the gun was handed to Michael Massee, it would
have been chalked up as a careless mistake. But J.B. Jones's incompetence
played right into the killer's hands—if Brandon Bruce Lee was murdered.</span><span face=""arial" , sans-serif" style="color: #222222; font-size: 10pt;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-align: center;"> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-align: center;"> </div></span></div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3991120675471885568.post-62684775808393546552018-11-04T19:31:00.004-08:002021-08-28T08:01:42.927-07:00The Truth<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<img border="0" data-original-height="270" data-original-width="360" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUZlbEQPkK3F8MR4a-OdETzEW07KB4z2pSVsqYO3D-KLcrnWRVVe8pK5T8hEjLzWroWEznvLQ2Itzi8-0xVBXt4xouTRrGxx8vBhGJR_uMRL5KsLuHdpjmmXK2n3U_uBZW0pZdmHQLEeOT/s320/1+Illuminated+Maze.jpg" width="320" /></div><span style="color: #222222;"><div style="background: white; font-size: 13.5pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><br /></div><span style="font-size: medium;">What is the truth?<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
</span></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-size: medium;">That's what I want to know.</span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-size: medium;"><br />
Why did Brandon Lee die that morning and not one of the ten thousand several
monsters roaming the earth That's a mystery that can only be
revealed in the enlightenment of death.</span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-size: medium;"><br />
Was he murdered?</span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #222222;"><br />
Was he the victim of a curse? </span><span style="background-color: transparent;">here are recorded instances of a few families who seem to
be cursed; the Kennedy family is a prime example, with their beauty and vast
riches, their Shakespearean scandals, death by a plane crash.
colliding into trees, drug overdose, and assassinations. </span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: black;"><b>Aristotle Onassis</b> lost his beloved son, Alexandros in a plane crash
in 1973. Soon after the child's mother killed herself, and then Aristotle died
in 1975. The </span><span>daughter, Christina, inherited his vast fortune and stepped up her
decadent life Each of her four marriages ended in divorce. She was
hooked on food, alcohol, and drugs. In 1989, she died in her bathtub of an overdose of sleeping pills.</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgX_gLDoJR4OWlIWobag0IwRrFAvFz2V7xkVHcExJVP2DmkoJzvz6m-QpSj-YCXLBLGvTQ6zPT4ZJABzDTg6DHlKnSSC0mCvSdaaGAhjYh2QepMDd4CgwxcjfX3mCBfK2NgsufUmWapWh2O/s1600/ACC+4.jpg" style="float: right;"><span style="color: blue; font-size: medium; text-decoration: none;"> </span></a><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: black;"><b>Ernest Hemingway</b>'s father committed suicide by gun. All
of his wealth and fame was apparently not enough to make him happy, because he
also killed himself, with a shotgun, in 1961. He was 62 years old. His </span><span>sister, Ursula, who was struggling with cancer, in 1966, committed suicide via OD. His only brother, Leicester, committed suicide, in
1982, after diabetes, had destroyed his legs, which were scheduled to be
amputated. In 1996, Earnest Hemingway's granddaughter, Margaux, OD'd on
barbiturates 35 years to the day he died. </span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: black;"><b>Marlon Brando</b>'s family was dysfunctional. His mother was a boozer and, his </span><span>first wife was that and a druggy. In 1990, his son Christian shot
dead his half-sister, Cheyenne's boyfriend. Christian died of pneumonia in
2008. Cheyenne killed herself in 1995. Is depression culminating in
suicide inherited? Perhaps.</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgm8G2LHROiXWc9c6zcMWq300ruXm2ENfWGlISxhyphenhyphen7_1xWsWGJGx3ZdfPUXkpZvX5hcWakIIPNYVJsoxDnVR8PpTwXFKi0EmKt3QnbFWRR_xlBFePdv0UuAI5Ni718mv_0rI1xAtF7PtyYF/s1600/ACC+5.jpg" style="float: right;"><span style="color: blue; font-size: medium; text-decoration: none;"> </span></a><span style="color: black; font-size: medium;">Were the Lee males cursed? It certainly seems likely. There
were just too many commonalities. What are the odds that <i>Game of
Death </i>foretold Brandon's death? What are the odds that both died while
shooting a film?</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: medium;">To me, the Lee Curse is the strangest of them all.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: medium;">If it and the others were indeed cursed. We need to remember that
life itself is a curse.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: medium;">When Wilmington, North Carolina, District Attorney Jerry Spivey
began his investigation neither cast nor crew would give him more than an “I
don’t know what happened.” But finally, one of them dropped a dime and began to
talk, and in the end, others spoke up about the things already covered in other
pages of this site and Spivey concluded the investigation by reporting the he
found no evidence of foul play in the death of Brandon Bruce Lee and
handed down no indictments to any of those responsible for the carelessness
that he says did cause Brandon's death—but left the case open in case new
evidence popped up. (At this writing, the case may have been closed.)</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: medium;">Were those interviewed being honest with
Spivey? Only they know, and in my opinion, the whole truth of what happened has never been told to the public—or even to Spivey. That does not
mean Brandon was murdered and someone is covering <i>it</i> up.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background: white; color: black;"><br />
For Brandon to have been murdered by a prop gun, the killer</span><span style="background: white; color: black;"> would have had to have pre-knowledge of
that particular shooting scene. And the killer could not have had that
knowledge because Proyas did not plan it. It wasn't in the script. Eric Draven
being shot was a random plot element, thought up by Proyas on the spur of the
moment. He says. What if that actually was planned? Why would Proyas lie
about it? Was he a part of a conspiracy? I don’t buy that. Was the.44 Magnum
left on the set during a break and did someone sneak on stage and rig the tip
to lodge in the chamber so that Brandon would be killed? I don’t buy that
either. How would the killer even know if his plan would work? Come on, if
someone wanted Brandon Lee dead they wouldn't play around, would they? I don’t
think so. </span><span style="color: black;"></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background: white; color: black;">The truth is: <i>The Crow</i>'s safety net
failed.</span><span style="color: black;"></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background: white; color: black;">A safety net is only as
strong as its fiber, in this case, the members of the production—the producer,
the director, and to an extent, the crew, and least of all the cast. I say
least of all because it was not the cast's responsibility to make sure
everything was on the up and up. It was their job to portray their
characters. And because production cut corners with a budget to save time,
because, according to Brandon Lee in a letter to Ed Pressman, the conditions
were subhuman—and because of drugs? specifically a blizzard of cocaine And
so from the get-go, on February 1, 1993—Brandon's 28th and last
birthday—things began to happen, from accidents due in part to the narrow minds
of clock-watching penny-pinchers who wanted to save a buck and a minute,
Einsteins who would not allow Brandon to do dangerous stunts like
jumping from roof to roof because they were afraid he'd get hurt, yet they sent
the firearms specialist home and didn't clean the gun and didn't check it out
before they handed it to Mr. Massee.</span><span style="color: black;"></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: medium;"> f they hadn't cut corners,
overworked everyone, including Rochelle Davis, 13, who played Sarah and in
letting the weapon's expert go if producer Ed Pressmen hadn't ignored
Brandon's letter stating that everybody was working in a subhuman environment;
if the special effects guy, who took over for the weapon's expert, had
declined the job or at least had known enough to instruct Mr. Massee to aim
away from Brandon (and the scene could have been computerized to look like he
was aiming at Brandon, but, say hey, that would have cost more time and money,
babydoll). There is a whole load of IFs. But it boils down to letting
the weapon's expert goes to save a few bucks. </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background: white; color: black;">This just in from </span><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "inherit " "important" "" , serif;">Findadeath</span><span style="background: white; color: black;">.com forum member and Brandon Lee fan, </span><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "inherit " "important" "" , serif;">Crimsonams</span><span style="background: white; color: black;"> "You rarely get accidents on set when the pros are
there. Well, let me rephrase... you rarely get fatal accidents. If you want to
save a few bucks, let go of craft services and make people brown-bag it... cut
the people who have to drive the crew back and forth and make them cart their
own happy asses there... cut the assistants. Don't get rid of the ones who are
crucial, who know what they're doing and are there to keep you safe. Just my
opinion... but I guess that's why I'm poor and don't have a big bucks job. The
shit some people do may save them money, but it makes no </span><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "inherit " "important" "" , serif;">friggin'</span><span style="background: white; color: black;"> sense to me."</span><span style="color: black;"></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: medium;">Thanks, Crimsonams!</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: medium;">The truth is Brandon Bruce Lee was the victim of a domino fall of
greed and human error, which is stranger to me than murder or any curse.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: black; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: black; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: black; font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: medium; text-align: center;"> </div></span></div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0