On February 14, 2016, during the NBA All-Star Dunk Contest, Aaron Gordon, a professional basketball player for the Orlando Magic, delivered one of the most jaw-dropping dunks in recent memory. Known for his incredible leaping ability, Gordon executed a dunk that would leave spectators and sports fans amazed. In the second round of the dunk contest, Gordon ran towards the basket, took off from the free-throw line, and leaped over the Orlando Magic mascot, who was standing upright on a hoverboard. The timing and precision required for this dunk were nothing short of extraordinary. Gordon soared through the air, metaphorically defying gravity, and managed to clear the mascot with ease before slamming the ball through the hoop. This extraordinary feat showcased not only Gordon's incredible athleticism but also his creativity and showmanship.

Was bruce lee cursed

What, or who, killed Bruce Lee continues to be a source of great debate among fans nearly five decades after the martial arts icon’s death. Photo: Handout

It has been 48 years since Bruce Lee passed away at the age of 33. To this day, Lee remains the yardstick against which all other martial arts stars – from Jackie Chan to Jet Li – are measured against. His films like Enter the Dragon and Way of the Dragon remain legendary and continue to inspire modern martial artists like Hong Kong action hero JuJu Chan .

Even now, decades on, tremendous controversy surrounds the death of Lee. In much the same way as Princess Diana ’s shocking death led to many baseless conspiracy theories – it was the queen who ordered her killed, or MI6, or the CIA – so too did Lee’s untimely passing.

Bruce Lee’s last months

What’s known for sure is that, two months before his death, Bruce Lee was suddenly hospitalised. This occurred in May 1973 when Lee collapsed while carrying out post-production work on Enter the Dragon. Debilitated by seizures and headaches, he was rushed to Hong Kong Baptist Hospital in Kowloon Tong.

Diagnosed with cerebral edema – caused when fluid builds up around the brain, resulting in increased pressure – doctors stabilised Lee’s condition quickly with mannitol. After a brief hospital stay, he left and all was deemed well. Although Lee complained of the occasional headache after being discharged, he maintained his usual strict diet and intense fitness regime.

However, the conditions that afflicted Lee in May struck him again on the day of his death, July 20, 1973.

The death of Bruce Lee

On this final, fatal occasion, Lee spent most of his last day hard at work discussing the making of Game of Death – Lee’s unfinished final film which features his iconic yellow and black jumpsuit . For most of the day he worked alongside producer and business partner Raymond Chow before the pair visited Taiwanese actress Betty Ting Pei’s home . The trio looked over the script before Chow left for dinner elsewhere.

Later that evening, Lee developed a headache, so Ting gave him an Equagesic, a painkiller containing aspirin and a tranquilliser known as meprobamate. Still weary, Lee went for a nap. When Lee didn’t come down for dinner later on, Ting attempted to wake him without success. She called Chow back to her house, who likewise failed to rouse the star. The pair then dialled for a doctor who tried to revive Lee and, failing, rushed him by ambulance to Queen Elizabeth Hospital. Lee was declared dead on arrival.

The official verdict

Dead at 33 despite being a picture of health – many fans found it hard to believe the official verdicts on Bruce Lee’s death. The autopsy ruled that Lee’s death was due to excess fluid that caused his brain to swell by 13 per cent with a correspondingly lethal increase in pressure.

Poisoned by a jealous lover?

Almost at once, conspiracy theories abounded. Chow, thinking of Lee’s reputation, didn’t help matters when he claimed the martial arts star had been struck down at home with his wife, Linda. Within days the Hong Kong press had learned this wasn’t the case, and Chow’s lie fuelled rumours that Lee must have been having an affair with Ting or, so the more salacious whispers went, it was all due to a depraved drug-fuelled orgy.

Once the rumours of Ting’s liaison with Lee took hold, angry fans soon came to blame the Taiwanese starlet for his death. It was she who administered the fatal dose of Equagesic, so it must have been she who poisoned him. Some said the pair were lovers, but Lee was looking to end their affair and, in a jealous rage, Ting took revenge.

“I received threats that my life was in danger as revenge for Bruce,” Ting said years later in an interview. “I was only 26 and was so afraid of death at that time. Nobody came to help me.”

A fatal drug overdose?

Lee’s use of drugs is a topic that has continually generated interest and some have suggested that was to blame for the star’s death. His use of marijuana was somewhat known and the substance was found in his stomach during his autopsy. However, Donald Teare, the forensic scientist who carried out Lee’s autopsy, was at pains to dismiss this as a cause of death, saying that to do so would be both “irresponsible and irrational”.

In more recent years Lee’s apparent use of hard drugs, such as cocaine and LSD, has come to light in letters said to have been written by the star – increasing speculation, although debunked, that drug use was to blame for Lee’s demise.

Bruce Lee vs the triads

If Ting didn’t do it for herself, others claimed – despite any evidence – she was a willing assassin for various triad gangs. Lee had history with triads, having supposedly beaten up the son of a local gang leader in one of his many street fights as a youth – the kind of trouble that led him to move away to the US as a teenager.

One conspiracy theory claimed that since Lee refused to pay Hong Kong triads for protection money on his film sets, they ordered him killed. Others said it was, in fact, mainland Chinese gangs that wanted Lee out of the way. The Cantonese star’s films were threatening the dominance of Mandarin-language films, so the theory went, and afraid for their investments they sought to have Lee killed to protect their bottom line.

The greedy business partner

Someone else looking to protect their money was Raymond Chow, who also came under scrutiny. Chow and Lee were business partners who co-founded Concord Production Inc, the film company that had helped make Lee’s movies Way of the Dragon, Enter the Dragon and Game of Death.

Despite this working relationship, the pair’s personal relationship was said to be more fractious. Those suspicious of the official verdict wondered whether Chow didn’t have Lee offed to prevent his star man from leaving him for the vast spoils of the US.

Not only that, but with Lee gone Chow gained full control of Concord, owning the rights to arguably Lee’s most famous films. With the icon’s death, crazed theorists claimed Chow could take advantage of Lee’s posthumous fame to sell his films to an international market eager for more martial arts action.

What is known for sure is that, cynically, Chow would also release Game of Death years after its star’s death. Only 11 minutes of action Lee filmed for the project was used, but Chow used lookalikes and stand-ins to do the rest and even included footage of Lee’s real-life funeral in the most unabashed way.

The touch of death secret technique

Outlandish though these claims are, they are not even the most far-fetched of Bruce Lee conspiracy theories. One of the most fanciful is the belief that Lee was murdered by a cabal of Chinese kung fu masters enraged at the fact that Lee was teaching foreigners ancient Chinese techniques. It was this issue that led to Lee’s infamous private battle with Wong Jack-man, who said that if he won, Lee would have to stop teaching American students.

Mystery surrounds the fight but, whatever the circumstance and result, Lee continued to teach non-Chinese students. Some say this angered other sifu. According to an article in martial arts magazine Black Belt, Lee died because he was struck by the killer technique dim mak, aka the “touch of death”, a secret technique that attacks pressure points leading to the delayed death of an opponent.

Bruce Lee was cursed .

Perhaps the most far-out controversy is the belief that a family curse is responsible for Bruce Lee’s death. Believers of this theory point to the fact that Lee’s parents had lost a son before Bruce’s birth. Believing the curse to be afflicting males in the family, this, it is claimed, is why his parents called Bruce “Little Phoenix” at home, a nickname traditionally for girls.

The effect of this curse is also used to explain the unfortunate death of Bruce’s son Brandon Lee, at the age of 28, when filming The Crow. True believers say it is not just an eerie coincidence that Brandon was accidentally shot on set in the same way that Bruce’s character is shot while filming in Game of Death. Of course, this theory ignores the fact that Bruce’s elder brother Peter lived to 69 while his younger brother Robert is still alive to this day.

Linda Lee, Bruce Lee’s wife, and her children Shannon and Brandon at the funeral of Bruce Lee. Photo: SCMP

The legend never dies

Ultimately, despite these many unfounded conspiracies, Lee remains an icon . These theories have not dimmed his personal appeal, his physical prowess or the magic of his movies (or, even, his somewhat unlikely reputation as a style icon ).

His wife, Linda, has said it best: “All these years later, people still wonder about how Bruce died. I prefer to remember how he lived.”

Actor and martial-arts expert Bruce Lee dies at age 32

On July 20, 1973, the actor and martial-arts expert Bruce Lee dies in Hong Kong at age 32 from a brain edema possibly caused by a reaction to a prescription painkiller. During Lee’s all-too-brief career, he became a movie star in Asia and, posthumously, in America.

Jun Fan (Bruce) Lee was born on November 27, 1940, in San Francisco, California. At the time, his father, a Chinese opera star, was on tour in the United States. The family moved back to Hong Kong in 1941. Growing up, Lee was a child actor who appeared in some 20 Chinese films; he also studied dancing and trained in the Wing Chun style of gung fu (also known as “kung fu”). In 1959, Lee returned to America, where he eventually attended the University of Washington and opened a martial-arts school in Seattle. In 1964, Lee married Linda Emery, who in 1965 gave birth to Brandon Lee, the first of the couple’s two children. In 1966, the Lees moved to Los Angeles and Bruce appeared on the television program The Green Hornet (1966-1967), playing the Hornet’s acrobatic sidekick Kato. Lee also appeared in karate tournaments around the United States and continued to teach martial arts to private clients including the actor Steve McQueen.

In search of better acting roles than Hollywood was offering, Lee returned to Hong Kong in the early 1970s and successfully established himself as a star in Asia with the action movies The Big Boss (1971) and The Way of the Dragon (1972), which he wrote, directed and starred in. Lee’s next film, Enter the Dragon, was released in the United States by Hollywood studio Warner Bros. in August 1973. Tragically, Lee had died one month earlier, on July 20, in Hong Kong, after suffering a brain edema. Enter the Dragon was a box-office hit, eventually grossing more than $200 million, and Lee posthumously became a movie icon in America.

Lee’s body was returned to Seattle, where he was buried. His sudden death at the young age of 32 led to rumors and speculation about the cause of his demise. One theory held that Lee had been murdered by Chinese gangsters while another rumor circulated that the actor had been the victim of a curse. The family-curse theory resurfaced when Lee’s 28-year-old son Brandon, who had followed in his father’s footsteps to become an actor, died in an accidental shooting on the set of the movie The Crow on March 31, 1993. The younger Lee was buried next to his father at Seattle’s Lake View Cemetery.

HISTORY.com works with a wide range of writers and editors to create accurate and informative content. All articles are regularly reviewed and updated by the HISTORY.com team. Articles with the “HISTORY.com Editors” byline have been written or edited by the HISTORY.com editors, including Amanda Onion, Missy Sullivan, Matt Mullen and Christian Zapata.

5 myths about Bruce Lee, debunked by the author of his new biography

Seija is a Los Angeles-based features editor. Follow her on Instagram @_seija_ for musings on the latest movies, books, and in-flight magazines (really).

Friday marks the 45th anniversary of legendary actor Bruce Lee's death. As his fans reflect on his life and career, the author of his recent biography, Bruce Lee: A Life is sharing a few insights from his extensive research and interview process. Below Matthew Polly reflects in his own words.

Bruce Lee died a month before the release of Enter the Dragon (1973), the movie which turned him into an international icon. His fame was almost entirely posthumous. Unlike James Dean or Marilyn Monroe, he lacked a well-defined celebrity persona. "I knew so little about him and wanted to know so much," wrote a young woman from New Jersey to Black Belt magazine in 1973. "Suddenly, he is dead, and I just can't accept it. It's as if I knew him, and now I never will." To satisfy fans ravenous for details about his life, dozens of special edition magazines and quickie biographies were cranked out, filled with fictionalized accounts of his heroic deeds. Many of these tall tales were cemented in the public's consciousness by the Hollywood biopic, Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story (1993).

Six years ago, I set out to uncover the man buried beneath the legend. Shockingly, no one had ever written a comprehensive biography of the most famous Asian American in the world. Most of the information about Bruce was spread out across martial arts magazines, self-published memoirs, and low-budget documentaries—few providing sourcing for their claims. The legend had become fact, so they printed the legend. In the course of my research, I encountered five enduring myths about Bruce Lee that are taken as gospel by even his most well-informed fans.

This extraordinary feat showcased not only Gordon's incredible athleticism but also his creativity and showmanship. The dunk was an epitome of the NBA's efforts to entertain fans, pushing the boundaries of what is possible on the basketball court. The leap over the mascot quickly became a viral sensation, with millions of people marveling at Gordon's remarkable display of skill and grace.

1. He was a teetotaler

When Johnny Walker Whiskey released an advertisement in 2013 that starred a CGI "Bruce Lee" philosophizing in Mandarin for the Chinese market, I was in Hong Kong interviewing Bruce's friends and family members. Fans erupted in outrage that their hero, who supposedly did not drink, was being used to endorse alcohol. The South China Morning Post ran an article entitled, "Bruce Lee Whiskey Advert Branded a Disgrace: Movie Legend Digitally Recreated for Johnnie Walker Commercial Despite Being a Teetotaler."

The origin of this myth comes from a quote Bruce Lee gave to the martial arts magazine Fighting Stars explaining why he avoided most Hollywood parties: "I'm not that type of cat. I don't drink or smoke and those events are many times senseless." In truth, what he meant was he didn't drink very much or very often, because alcohol did not sit well with him. His friends report that after a few sips, he would turn red in the face, start sweating, and feel nauseous. It seems Lee suffered from alcohol flush reaction—more colloquially known as the Asian Glow because over 35 percent of East Asians have the condition. Affected persons lack an enzyme needed to metabolize alcohol. The only type of booze Bruce Lee could drink without a severe reaction was sake.

Even fellow NBA players and celebrities took to social media to express their awe and admiration for the dunk. While Aaron Gordon narrowly missed out on winning the contest that year, his leaping ability and dunk over a mascot will forever be remembered as a defining moment in the history of the NBA Slam Dunk Contest. The dunk solidified Gordon's status as one of the most exciting and electrifying players in the league, leaving fans eagerly anticipating his future performances on the court..

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