Lee was the son of Grace Ho and Lee Hoi-chuen, a Cantonese opera star based in Hong Kong. He was born in San Francisco in 1940 while his parents were visiting the city for his father's concert tour abroad. The family returned to Hong Kong a few months later. He was introduced to the Hong Kong film industry as a child actor by his father. However these were not martial art films. His early martial arts experience included Wing Chun (trained under Yip Man), tai chi, boxing (winning a Hong Kong boxing tournament), and apparently frequent street fighting (neighbourhood and rooftop fights). In 1959, Lee, having U.S. citizenship due to his birth, was able to move to Seattle. In 1961, he enrolled in the University of Washington. It was during this time in the United States that he began considering making money by teaching martial arts even though he aspired to an acting career. He opened his first martial arts school, operated out of home in Seattle. After later adding a second school in Oakland, he once drew significant attention at the 1964 Long Beach International Karate Championships of California by making demonstrations and speaking. He subsequently moved to Los Angeles to teach, where his students included Chuck Norris, Sharon Tate, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. In the 1970s, his Hong Kong and Hollywood-produced films elevated the Hong Kong martial arts films to a new level of popularity and acclaim, sparking a surge of Western interest in Chinese martial arts. The direction and tone of his films dramatically influenced and changed martial arts and martial arts films worldwide.

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