DRAGON: THE BRUCE LEE STORY
It was when I was about to start this movie that my little brother died. I had just left the Universal lot where I had delivered a picture of him and his measurements to casting. He was going to come visit me in Hong Kong and be in a scene as a karate student. I was driving to Valencia, Ca. ,where our production offices were located, for rehearsal and a wardrobe fitting. I suddenly was consumed with horrible thoughts - so much so that I had to pull over to the side of the freeway until I calmed down. When I finally managed to get there, I explained to my director (Rob Cohen), and my producer (Rafaella DiLaurentis) why I was late. They thought I was just nervous about the long plane trip to such a faraway place. I couldn’t shake the bad feelings. I had just tried on one of the dresses that the real Linda Lee was going to let me borrow and wear in the film, when I asked if I could use the phone and check my machine. That’s when I got the horrific news that forever changed my family. I could never bring myself to wear that particular dress in the movie.
I will always be indebted to Rob and Rafaella for postponing the start, to let me go home and grieve. When we did begin, I felt like I was supposed to be doing this, and that the experience was going to help me begin to heal. I found myself in Asia, a spiritual place itself, but even more, I was working with Jason Scott Lee. I don’t think there is a more calming, gentle human being. 
He taught me so much. We explored, we went to temples, we immersed ourselves in the culture, and he became someone I could really talk to and share my feelings with. I had never before or since had that kind of a friendship with a man. It did not surprise me at all that years later he went back to Hawaii, where he grew up, and he became a midwife. I will always be thankful that we met at that moment in my life.
I think the movie surprised a lot of people. Linda Lee was with us most of the time, keeping the story faithful to the truth. She is a wonderful woman and now happily remarried to another man named Bruce. It was a love story more than a martial arts film, and people really enjoyed it. Bruce was a special man. At the premiere at Mann’s Chinese Theatre I sat with Linda and her daughter Shannon. As we watched, I realized how brave they were, as the movie must have hurt. Even more so because they had since lost their son/brother Brandon. Eerily, there was a bit of foreshadowing of that terrible event in the movie. We were all bound together by tragedy.
