The one actor Bruce Lee always saw as his main rival: “He told me he’s going to be a bigger star than me”
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No offence to Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Donnie Yen, Sammo Hung, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Chuck Norris, or anyone else who made their name displaying their fighting prowess onscreen, but Bruce Lee is still the single most iconic martial arts movie actor in cinema history.
Even though it’s been over 50 years since he passed away at the age of only 32, it speaks volumes about both his talent and longevity that he hasn’t been surpassed. In the last half-century, the movie industry has yet to produce anyone who’s made as big a mark on popular culture in as short a space of time, despite many actors being branded ‘the new Bruce Lee’ when they first burst onto the scene.
Martial arts films had always been a staple of Hong Kong cinema, and while they had an international audience, they weren’t what anyone would call mainstream. At least, until Lee became a global superstar, and he was credited with turning a niche form of filmmaking into a must-see form of big-screen entertainment. He didn’t do it alone, of course, but he was at the forefront of the movement.
There’s still a difference between being a martial arts star and an A-list movie star, though, and Lee set his sights on the latter. An intoxicating blend of good looks, screen presence, natural charisma, lightning-speed reflexes, and ass-kicking nonchalance, he had all the tools to leave his wheelhouse behind and conquer Hollywood, even if his first attempt in The Green Hornet didn’t go so well.
There was plenty of competition, with the early 1970s drowning in marketable leading men, with Paul Newman, Jack Nicholson, Dustin Hoffman, Robert Redford, Clint Eastwood, and Burt Reynolds just a few of them. However, there was only one performer that Lee saw as his main rival in securing superstardom.
It wasn’t merely a professional rivalry, either, since Lee had been giving Steve McQueen martial arts lessons since the mid-1960s. They met through a mutual friend, and as the ‘King of Cool’ sought to improve his hand-to-hand combat skills, his teacher sought to replicate the student’s effortless appeal.
“I like guys who are the best at what they do, and Bruce Lee was the best at what he did,” McQueen told Michael Munn. “He kind of liked what I had, which was stardom. He told me he’s going to be a bigger star than me; I hope he’s wrong.” By the time he passed away in 1973, you could say he’d achieved it.
Lee was a worldwide celebrity, the biggest name in martial arts movies, and he’d even diversified into producing and directing. To reverse the old cliché, the teacher eventually surpassed the student, with The Way of the Dragon netting the actor and filmmaker a $3million paycheque, more than McQueen had earned for Papillon, which was filmed at around the same time.
As James Coburn recalled, “Steve and Bruce had enormous respect for each other, but they were also very competitive with each other,” with the friend of both describing them as “two enormous egos that wanted what the other had.” Lee wanted to be a bigger name than McQueen, and at the time of his death, it’s hardly stretching the bounds of credulity to say that he was.
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