The untimely death of actor Brandon Lee would have been a major story under any circumstances--the death of an actor by accidental shooting during the filming of a movie is both rare and shocking and so would attract a good deal of attention. However, the death of Brandon Lee at the age of 28 created more of a stir than might otherwise have been the case because of his family history, with the sudden death of his father, Bruce Lee, when the latter had achieved international stardom at the age of 32, and because of the nature of the film he was shooting, a film about a hero who returns from the dead. The story was thus played up as if there were a curse on the Lee family and as if aspects of the movie being made had come to life, with the movie also being made out to have been unlucky from the beginning.
Brandon Lee was eight years old when his father died, and he spent most of his life trying to come to terms with a man he hardly knew. The death of Bruce Lee also engendered a good deal of speculation and conjecture because of its suddenness, his young age, his clearly superior physical condition, and some uncertainty as to the cause of the death. Autopsy results at the time indicated that death was caused by a brain swelling brought about by an allergic reaction to a painkiller. Most of the people closest to Bruce Lee, including his widow, accepted these findings, but elements in the press continued to make a mystery of the situation, just as they would do with the death of Brandon. In any case, it is evident that the death of his father hit young Brandon hard, removing his hero from his life while at the same time leaving him with the problem of being the son of a celebrity, a problem exacerbated by the type of celebrity his father was:
For Brandon, it was not easy being the fatherless son of a legendary fighter. "When I was growing up, we moved around a lot, and whenever I'd get to a new school, there'd be somebody the...