Bruce Lee by Bruce Thomas

Author:Bruce Thomas [Thomas, Bruce]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780283070815
Publisher: Pan Macmillan UK

In May 1972, Bruce Lee’s boyhood friend Unicorn met with Tang Di, a representative of the Sing Hoi Film Company, at the Peninsular Hotel. With the sudden popularity of martial arts films, the company decided it wanted to get in on the act. As Tang discreetly put it to Unicorn, ‘Frankly speaking, your name, of course, won’t sell; but if you have “another” who can help you, the film will not only sell, it will earn a lot of money.’

In short, Bruce Lee’s involvement in the picture was the condition that would secure the starring role for Unicorn. Bruce gave Unicorn the role of the head waiter in Way of the Dragon, but when Unicorn had presented the idea to Bruce, suggesting that he might do the fight choreography, he didn’t expect him to go for it. After all, the budget for the film was so low it was close to the earth’s core. Bruce replied that, although he realized he was being manipulated, he would do what he could to help, but when Bruce attended a publicity bash for the film at the Miramar Hotel in Kowloon, he got all the attention and had to ask the press photographers not to ignore Unicorn.

As filming started in August 1972, it soon became obvious that Unicorn was out of his depth as a leading actor and again Bruce had to step in. As well as supervising the action, Bruce came up with several script ideas, spending a day at the set while the cameras rolled.

When the film – imaginatively titled Fist of Unicorn – was released soon afterwards, Bruce Lee was not only credited as the martial arts advisor but was given star billing. Footage of Bruce arriving on the set and of him rehearsing the actors had been contrived to fit a new storyline. Bruce could only issue a legal letter condemning the sorry project, and although Bruce’s friendship with Unicorn continued, the incident increased his wariness of others.

As for Unicorn, one reviewer wrote, ‘One only has to witness his stolid approach to every scene, his constipated countenance, resplendent as it is with a neck that is evidently part of his chin, and eyebrows modelled on Roger Moore at their tugging fishhook best.’

Bruce Lee’s superstar status made him vulnerable to all kinds of exploitation. His name was used to endorse products he’d never heard of, much less used, while quotes attributed to him were used to hype films he’d never seen. Producers advertised offers to him in the pages of the Hong Kong press, while seeking only to generate publicity for themselves and increase their prestige by some kind of association, however tenuous. The situation in which he now found himself had changed so quickly that a normal life was no longer possible. As the press became ever more ridiculous in its excesses, Bruce used to wake up to find parts of a previous evening’s conversation in a restaurant splashed across the newspapers, and headlines like BRUCE LEE LINKED TO

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