Hong Kong’s Most Infamous Inquest
In her first book, Bruce Lee: The Man Only I Knew, Linda Lee said this about the September 1973 inquest into his July death: “I personally testified that I had only heard of Bruce taking cannabis after his collapse in May.”
If you read my Correspondence of the Dragon article, you will know how false this is. In the King of Kung Fu book, part of the inquest’s transcript is displayed on page 85 including a reference to the widow which states: “In reply to Mr. David Yapp (representing the American International Assurance Company), she said Lee had told her that March or April was the first time he had tried the drug.”
Linda Lee was disingenuous. She told the Hong Kong police that her husband had no enemies when he was alive. That’s not true (there are the local press for starters). At the inquest, she denied him having any financial problems (no reference to the dispute with Raymond Chow over their Concord company). Even Bruce’s older brother, Peter, knew about this. Also, Linda claimed that Bruce didn’t consult any doctor in his last two months (i.e. June and July) despite Dr. Donald Langford telling the police that Bruce relayed to him the results of the U.S. tests. What’s also suspicious is the removal of the following statements for Linda’s `80s remake book…
Around noon on July 20: “Bruce was in his study at the time dictating to his secretary.”
About the inquest: “I saw Betty and talked to her and satisfied myself as to what had happened.”
“Betty” as in Betty Ting Pei, the actress. It’s funny how actor George Lazenby wasn’t interviewed as part of the police investigation and inquest. There was something that Raymond Chow said in the inquest that reflects the time which Bruce had supposedly spent with George: “Prior to his death, I saw him almost every day for 3 to 4 days.”
Lazenby told journalist Bey Logan: “He never forgot the way Hollywood treated him, the way they didn’t trust a Chinese guy to star in a film. I was there in his house in what turned out to be the last days of his life, and he had Warner Brothers calling him on the phone everyday, begging him to sign a three picture deal, and he was turning them down. Huge money. They were offering him whatever he wanted, but he insisted that he had to make it on his own terms. He really was the biggest star in the world when he died.”
Oddly, Linda Lee didn’t have any domestic Lazenby anecdotes in either of her books. In a book titled Unsettled Matters, her next husband (Tom Bleecker) addressed her involvement in the inquest: “Linda had earlier said that Bruce told her on the day of his death that he was having dinner that evening with Chow and Lazenby, the primary purpose being to coax Lazenby into doing Game of Death. Two years later, however, Linda told reporters in Hong Kong that on that fateful day, Chow, Lazenby, and Bruce had met at Betty’s.”
In Betty’s statement to the police, she mentioned that Raymond Chow left her apartment with the intention of inviting “some friends” to the dinner at the Kam Tin Chung restaurant. I guess that explains the source of the rumour about gangster Michael Chan Wai-Man meeting Chow at the Miramar Hotel. The story goes that Chan had informed Chow that Bruce was dead, to which Chow responded by asking how many other people are dead? Betty didn’t mention George Lazenby in her statement to the police, nor did Chow in his statement. George claims that he met Bolo Yeung during one of his meetings with Bruce Lee. The problem is that there is a magazine interview which Bolo had given where he claimed that the last time he saw Bruce was the week before he died.
At the inquest, Chow mentioned that he left Betty’s flat and picked up Lazenby at the Hyatt Hotel before driving him to the Miramar Hotel where the Kam Tin Chung restaurant was. No reference to who else was there. When it was Linda’s turn to speak, she didn’t reference Lazenby. Also, she didn’t seem certain that the restaurant appointment was a definite thing. When talking about Bruce when she last saw him alive, she said: “He appeared to be fit and well at that time. He was in a happy state. He told me that he would discuss a new film with Raymond Chow in that afternoon and probably would not come home for dinner.”
There’s something not right about Chow having no clue about Bruce’s cannabis use until the inquest. In Matthew Polly’s biography (Bruce Lee: A Life), Golden Harvest employee Andre Morgan recalled Bruce being slightly stoned when he threatened director Lo Wei at Golden Harvest on July 5. Also, Andre claimed that Bruce was munching on hashish at Golden Harvest on the morning of July 20. The significance that Bruce was said to have died during the evening. With the drugs being sent to Bruce’s assistant/butler Wu Ngan at Golden Harvest, there’s still the possibility that Chow could have tampered with them since himself and Bruce were increasingly at odds with one another. Every testimony in the inquest ignores that Bruce had spent time at Golden Harvest on the morning of July 20.
In the early nineties, Dr. Donald Langford was interviewed for a low-budget documentary that’s obscure by mainstream standards since it was going to be a video release. If Death by Misadventure had been a TV production, Donald would not have felt comfortable in telling the truth. For example, he claimed to have deliberately removed files that would hinder Linda Lee at the inquest. I find it odd that he didn’t have any documents that would confirm what Chow said about Bruce receiving blows to the head during filming. In Marcos Ocaña’s book about Bruce’s death, Langford mentioned that February 17, 1973 was when Bruce was accidentally cut by Bob Wall during the making of Enter the Dragon. He also mentioned that he had treated Bruce on March 29 because Bruce’s right leg had excessively bled for an unspecified reason.
On September 18, chemist Lam King-Leung declared at the inquest : “I could not find any plant tissue of cannabis but I did find some vegetable and black peas in the stomach.”
On the previous day, attorney Brian Tisdall asked Linda: “Do you know what your husband had for lunch on the day he died?”
She said: “I don’t know.”
Linda’s memory is certainly strange. At the inquest, she claimed to have moved to Hong Kong in February ‘72 instead of late ‘71. Perhaps she lied so as to justify the AIA insurance policy that came into motion on the following February, as if it was some sort of anniversary for their love or something.
