How Bruce Lee outlined his plan to become America’s first ‘Oriental super star’ – and earn US$10 million – in 1969
Iconic martial artist’s items – including punchbag and kung fu costume worn in 1973 film, Enter the Dragon – to be auctioned in Los Angeles on September 25 and 26
How much would you pay for a handwritten, signed personal statement by Bruce Lee? What about his kung fu costume, or the punchbag he pummelled with a thousand “fists of fury”?
I, Bruce Lee, will be the first highest paid Oriental super star in the United States. In return I will give the most exciting performances and render the best of quality in the capacity of an actor
Rare items belonging to the late actor, martial artist – and, most recently, inspirational figure for the Hong Kong protests – will be auctioned in Los Angeles on September 25 and 26.
The personal declaration by Lee, titled “My Definite Chief Aim”, is one of the most coveted items in the auction.
In the handwritten note, which he signed and dated “Jan 1969” – by which time he had already acted in supporting roles in American television series, including Batman, The Green Hornet and Ironside – he outlines his future goals.
The pop culture icon wrote idiomatically: “I, Bruce Lee, will be the first highest paid Oriental super star in the United States. In return I will give the most exciting performances and render the best of quality in the capacity of an actor.
“Starting 1970 I will achieve world fame and from then onwards till the end of 1980 I will have in my possession $10,000,000. I will live the way I please and achieve inner harmony and happiness.”
One of his most famous quotes, ‘Be formless … shapeless, like wate’” offers a sense of Lee the philosopher and free-verse poet.
Only a few years after writing his manifesto, Lee was dead, at the age of 32, after suffering a brain aneurysm in Kowloon Tong on July 20, 1973.
Yet incredibly, over that short period, Lee did achieve “world fame”, just as he had predicted, through his groundbreaking work in Lo Wei’s The Big Boss (1971), Fist of Fury (1972), Way of the Dragon (1972) and Enter the Dragon (1973), considered one of the greatest martial arts films of all time.