New Bruce Lee bio debunks myths about the 'kung fu Jesus'
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(CNN) Bruce Lee was training a friend one day when he did something unexpected.
The star of the classic film, "Enter the Dragon," was already known for his fanatical fitness regimen. He didn't smoke or drink; he gobbled vitamin supplements and drank raw blended hamburger meat. He'd transformed himself into a lithe fighter who could do two-finger push-ups and send burly men flying with his famed one-inch punch.
But Lee ended the training session at his home on this particular day with a different type of flourish. He lit a joint and started puffing away. It came from a box of marijuana cigarettes he kept in his garage. Lee would later move on to hashish, carrying it around in little bags and nibbling on it like edibles.
"It raises the consciousness level," Lee explained when another martial artist asked him why he got high.
That's not the type of story one typically hears about Lee. Since he died at age 32, his legend has grown to such mythological levels that one martial artist calls him "kung fu Jesus." A new biography, though, debunks some of the most popular myths about the man.
Bruce Lee's role as "Kato" in the TV series, "The Green Hornet," made him a star in Hong Kong.
"Bruce Lee: A Life" by Matthew Polly is the first in-depth account of Lee's journey from a street-brawling teenager to a global icon. The book, which comes on the 45th anniversary of Lee's death, features interviews from everyone from his childhood classmates to friends who saw him smoke up to the woman who last saw him alive. Lee's charisma, ambition and relentless appetite for combat leap off the pages. You can practically hear his catlike shrieks in some of the most vivid sections.
If you think you know Lee, this book may shock you.
Among its surprises:
- Lee was a "kinetic genius" who could quickly master any martial arts fighting style. But he never learned to ride a bike and was declared medically unfit for the draft after failing his physical.
- He has been portrayed as an impoverished immigrant who came to America to make it big, but he actually grew up in an affluent Hong Kong family with its own chauffeur and two live-in maids.
- He is seen as a Chinese superhero with a statue in Hong Kong, but he was also part Jewish.
Polly, who interviewed at least 100 of Lee's friends and family members, says people often forget that Lee was virtually unknown in the United States when he died. His breakthrough movie, "Enter the Dragon," was released less than a month after his mysterious death in Hong Kong in July 1973.
Lee is the only major Western icon whose fame is entirely posthumous, says Polly, who, as a skinny, bullied kid, was inspired by Lee's films to later move to China and study kung fu at a Shaolin temple. Lee wasn't just an entertainer; he was an evangelist. Millions took up martial arts because of him, Polly says."No other celebrity changed people's lives in that way," Polly says. "Nobody watched a Steve McQueen movie and took up something. People study martial arts because of Lee, and it changed their lives for the better. Bruce Lee has a place in a lot of fans' hearts as a demigod, or what I call a patron saint of kung fu. He had a missionary effect. "
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