Bruce Lee’s wife reveals how she fell in love with her teacher

Behind every great man is a great woman, and for martial arts legend Bruce Lee, that woman was Linda Emery, who married her dashing gongfu teacher in the mid-’60s. Linda and Bruce were husband and wife until July 20, 1973, when Bruce died of cerebral edema at the age of 32 … just six days before the Hong Kong release of what many consider to be his greatest cinematic achievement, “Enter the Dragon.”

Upon the 40-year anniversary of both the premiere of “Enter the Dragon” (which is now available in a 40th Anniversary Edition Blu-ray) and the untimely death of its star, Bruce Lee

In an interview with Linda Lee Cadwell (who has since remarried), she talked about her late husband’s legacy and how his abilities and philosophies have inspired countless others to reach their full potential — and beyond.

How did you and Bruce first meet?

LLC: [Laughs] It’s a fun story, actually! I was a senior in high school in Seattle, Washington at Garfield High School. And Bruce used to come to my school, he was five years older and a student of Philosophy at the University of Washington, he was friends with the philosophy teacher at my high school. So he would come to my high school to give lectures on Chinese philosophy; I was not in that class but I can tell you that every girl at my school knew when Bruce Lee was in the house because he was so dashing and so handsome. And one of my girlfriends who happened to be Chinese was taking gongfu lessons from him. And so the summer after I graduated from high school she talked me into taking gongfu lessons with Bruce, so that’s how we first met — I was his student and it wasn’t long before I was more interested in the teacher than the martial art, though I continued to do it for quite a while. [Laughs

 The 1993 film “Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story” is mostly based on your 1975 book, “Bruce Lee: The Man Only I Knew.” How do you feel about the film — was it a good adaptation or was it missing something?
LLC: I have mixed feelings about the film. On the good side I think it hit on the high points of Bruce’s life, the turning points, you might say. For instance, when he hurt his back and then he was laid up for six months, in bed a lot of the time, unable to be his usual physical self — the doctors told him he would be unable to ever do gongfu again and all this stuff. That was certainly a turning point in his life, though the injury did not happen in the way they showed it in the film — they felt they had to make it more dramatic. But the point is he hurt his back and he used that time, the six months or more that he was laid up, to produce most of his writings — the philosophical writings about his method of combat, all kinds of things.

 So the film took some liberties, it changed some facts, it had a mythical figure in it that I would not have agreed with but that a person can view on different levels. So there were good things and there were some not so good things and I hope that some day a really wonderful film is made about Bruce.


What are you dedicating your time to these days?

LLC: I have a wonderful life going on. I have a great husband named Bruce Cadwell, I live in Idaho, and between us we have nine grandchildren; I have one grandchild, my daughter’s daughter who is ten years old and I like to spend a lot of time with her.

Actually, you know, my daughter Shannon has taken over the role of perpetuating and preserving her father’s legacy, so I just show up at certain times and of course I’m interested in that goal as well and we have larger goals of some day wanting to build the Bruce Lee Action Museum and people in Seattle are very interested in sponsoring that. It’s a long-term project and that’s what we’re aiming at in the long run.


culled from Yahoo Movies