Among mysterious celebrity deaths, it is up there with JFK and Elvis. But the myth of Bruce Lee's (李小龍) demise in Hong Kong in 1973 may finally have been solved.
"The death of Bruce Lee, coming at such a young age and in the peak of physical fitness, has given rise to much speculation," said James Filkins, at Cook County medical examiner's office in Chicago. "Almost as soon as Lee died rumors began to surface."
The official cause of Lee's death was recorded in the autopsy report as cerebral edema, or brain swelling. This was supposedly due to his hypersensitivity to a painkiller called equigesic that he had taken that day. But further research suggests the kung fu idol may have died from an epileptic condition first recognized more than 20 years after his death.
The theories began on July 20 -- the day he died -- when he had been planning to meet his producer, Raymond Chow (鄒文懷), and the Australian actor George Lazenby, of James Bond fame, to try to persuade Lazenby to appear in his new film, Game of Death. He never made it to dinner.
The official explanation has never satisfied Lee's fans.
"Like James Dean, a death of someone so young gave cult status. He was known as the fittest man alive," said Brian Harrison, head of the Bruce Lee fan club, brucelee.org.uk.
Some speculated that he had been murdered by Hong Kong triads for refusing to pay protection money or by US gangsters for refusing to work in Hollywood. A minor actress, Betty Ting Pei (丁佩), was rumored to be Lee's mistress, something she has always denied. But some suggest he died while making love to her. None of these explanations washes with Filkins. The autopsy report recorded no evidence of physical injury or street drugs in Lee's system apart from marijuana. There were low levels of the painkiller.
Filkins thinks the official explanation is also wrong. Drug reactions tend to involve an anaphylactic reaction in which the victim's neck swells, he told the annual meeting of the American Academy of Sciences in Seattle. Instead, he thinks Lee died of a condition called sudden unexpected death in epilepsy (SUDEP), which was only recognized in 1995.
The condition involves a seizure which stops the heart or lungs. It kills around 500 people a year in the UK, is most common in men aged 20-40 and can be brought on by lack of sleep and stress.
"Lee was under a great deal of physical and mental distress at the time," Filkins said.
Jane Hanna, director of the support charity Epilepsy Bereaved, said SUDEP was gaining recognition.
NO EXCUSES: Marcos said his administration was acting on voters’ demands, but an academic said the move was emotionally motivated after a poor midterm showing Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr yesterday sought the resignation of all his Cabinet secretaries, in a move seen as an attempt to reset the political agenda and assert his authority over the second half of his single six-year term. The order came after the president’s allies failed to win a majority of Senate seats contested in the 12 polls on Monday last week, leaving Marcos facing a divided political and legislative landscape that could thwart his attempts to have an ally succeed him in 2028. “He’s talking to the people, trying to salvage whatever political capital he has left. I think it’s
Polish presidential candidates offered different visions of Poland and its relations with Ukraine in a televised debate ahead of next week’s run-off, which remains on a knife-edge. During a head-to-head debate lasting two hours, centrist Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, from Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s governing pro-European coalition, faced the Eurosceptic historian Karol Nawrocki, backed by the right-wing populist Law and Justice party (PiS). The two candidates, who qualified for the second round after coming in the top two places in the first vote on Sunday last week, clashed over Poland’s relations with Ukraine, EU policy and the track records of their
UNSCHEDULED VISIT: ‘It’s a very bulky new neighbor, but it will soon go away,’ said Johan Helberg of the 135m container ship that run aground near his house A man in Norway awoke early on Thursday to discover a huge container ship had run aground a stone’s throw from his fjord-side house — and he had slept through the commotion. For an as-yet unknown reason, the 135m NCL Salten sailed up onto shore just meters from Johan Helberg’s house in a fjord near Trondheim in central Norway. Helberg only discovered the unexpected visitor when a panicked neighbor who had rung his doorbell repeatedly to no avail gave up and called him on the phone. “The doorbell rang at a time of day when I don’t like to open,” Helberg told television
A team of doctors and vets in Pakistan has developed a novel treatment for a pair of elephants with tuberculosis (TB) that involves feeding them at least 400 pills a day. The jumbo effort at the Karachi Safari Park involves administering the tablets — the same as those used to treat TB in humans — hidden inside food ranging from apples and bananas, to Pakistani sweets. The amount of medication is adjusted to account for the weight of the 4,000kg elephants. However, it has taken Madhubala and Malika several weeks to settle into the treatment after spitting out the first few doses they