Shanghai — IN the southern Chinese city of Shunde, a two-hour boat ride from Hong Kong, government officials are finalizing plans to build a Bruce Lee theme park, complete with a memorial hall and a large statue of the man they call the town's favorite "son."
Never mind that the legendary Chinese American kung fu star was born in San Francisco and visited Shunde only briefly, when he was a boy of 5. Shunde is the hometown of Lee's father and grandfather, and that was enough for local resident Wang Dechao to prod the government to plow $125,000 into opening a Bruce Lee museum in an old teashop in Shunde in 2002.
Since then, more than 300,000 people, some paying $1 for admission, have come to see its collection of Bruce Lee's rare letters, film posters and other memorabilia. Wang, who now works for Shunde's cultural and sports authority, hopes to move the museum to the new theme park, which he says is projected to cost $19 million and open before the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.
CCTV, China's national network, has plans to produce a 40-part documentary about Bruce Lee. Meanwhile, Bruce Lee's brother, Robert, is planning a movie about him, as is one of Lee's former students. They all have their sights set on completing the works by the Beijing Olympics.
"I believe we will see another round of Bruce Lee fever," Wang said.
Although he has been dead 33 years, Bruce Lee remains an enduringly powerful cultural figure. What if, people often ask, he hadn't died at age 32, barely a month before the release of his blockbuster film "Enter the Dragon"? Most believe that film would have catapulted him into the ranks of Hollywood's superstars. But what then?
It's a question that his widow, Linda Cadwell, 61, often asks herself. "I think about it a lot -- what he missed," Cadwell said in a recent interview. "Professionally, I'm sure he probably would have stayed in the film industry and the performing industry, but maybe not always as an actor, because he loved to write." Then, pausing, she added that this year, "He would be 66."
When he died July 20, 1973, in Hong Kong, Lee left no will and was not a wealthy man. In those days, there weren't the movie-based action figures and video and computer games that line store shelves today. The estates of dead celebrities hadn't yet amassed the staggering licensing fees that they do today, when, say, Elvis Presley or Marilyn Monroe can generate millions annually. "In the early years, there really weren't things to license," Cadwell said. "There were key chains or a puppet doll that looked like Bruce," but little else.
