James Franciscus

"Bruce was a martial artist first and actor second - no question about that."  James Franciscus

		I didn't know Bruce much more than working with him that month and a half on Longstreet, but I considered him to be a friend, and we got along very well. He helped me a lot on the set. We had a show where the martial arts were used in one whole act against a fellow, and Bruce brought me through all of that and taught me enough basics so it looked like I knew what I was doing. I really didn't, but...

		Bruce was an excellent teacher-a super teacher. He was very tolerant, but he was also demanding because he wanted it done to perfection; that's the way he did it himself. I think Kung Fu  came much out of what was seen just on the one show on Longstreet, and it's become a very big thing. The martial arts were a big thing before they were in films here. And their popularity is certainly evidenced in his films that are appearing now.

		I think Bruce was a martial artist first and an actor second-no question about that. I have never seen anyone who could control his own destiny in a physical sense as much as Bruce was able to. But he also had a great sense of humor, and it struck me that ... I guess he was like the great football players. Thank God they are gentle people! He had the capacity to kill you with one blow, but he was just the opposite kind of a fellow. Here was a man who was a walking machete and yet, as an individual, was as gentle a man, as tolerant and unassuming, as I have ever known.

Stirling Silliphant

"Bruce was more than just a single success story.  He represented a whole race finally being accepted in films."
"He may be the only person I ever met in my whole life, and may ever meet, who was truly a master of what he did." Stirling Silliphant

		I met Bruce about five or six years ago. I had heard stories about his tremendous speed and ability, and I had seen him on The Green Hornet, in which he played "Kato". For some time, I had been wanting to get involved in martial arts. But I was searching for a freer style than I felt, at that time, karate could afford me. I wanted something more adaptable to street fighting. And I just couldn't find anyone who seemed to understand what I was looking for in terms of personal exercise and getting my body and head together.

		One of my major interests for the last 15 years has been a study of oriental philosophies, particularly of Zen. I felt that the martial arts were an extension of these disciplines. So I went looking for Bruce. It took me about six months to find someone who could introduce me to him, but at last he came to my offices at Columbia Pictures. I told him I wanted to study with him.

		Bruce said, "I think you're too old. I don't believe there's a chance your reflexes are good enough to do what I'd want you to do." So I did a few things, and he seemed pleased and surprised. He said okay, he'd take me on as a student.

		Joe Hyams, the writer, and I took lessons together two or three times a week from Bruce for a year. I got so interested I preferred to study alone with Bruce, which I did for another year, three times a week, advancing to what he called his second stage. When I got to that stage, he had me running three miles every morning and working out, and I was in absolutely beautiful condition.

During this time, in any of the films I was writing, I always tried either to incorporate Bruce as an actor or as a behind-the-scenes stuntman whenever I could. For example, I wrote a film at MGM called Marlowe with James Garner about four or five years ago. I put two sequences into it - the two best scenes in the film - where Bruce comes into Garner's office and tears it up and another when he meets Garner up on the roof of the Occidental building and goes kicking and screaming off into space. That probably was Bruce's first American feature film appearance.

Bruce was such a dear friend, and I had such tremendous respect for his absolutely God-given talent, that whenever I could put him into anything I would just make up things to get him into the film. The next project I did was a film for Columbia called A Walk in the Spring Rain; a love story. I wrote a fight scene into it which took place in the Tennessee mountains. Since the story was located in the South, I couldn't write any Orientals into the fight because they simply don't have Asians down there in Gatlinburg. But I did bring Bruce down to Tennessee to choreograph and stage the fight.

There were a couple of stuntmen - big, tough Caucasian cats - assigned to the movie who were very skeptical about Bruce. They saw this 135-pound Chinese who, when he didn't want to look tough, could maintain a very low profile. Bruce and I were hanging around together, and they kind of resented the fact that an outside guy - not a member of the stuntmen's union - was in charge of them. I made it very clear to them, since I was not only the writer but the producer, that Bruce was the boss on their fight sequence and they'd damn well follow his orders. But they kept putting him on and he was getting very uptight, so I said, "Listen, why don't you just give them a little sample of what a side kick can do?"

Bruce had brought down the air shield because he and I were working out all the time. He had me practicing my spin kicks and jumping kicks on the shield. So he said to them, "One of you guys hold this shield. I'm going to give it a little kick. But I suggest you brace yourself first. I kick pretty hard." And they said, "Oh, sure, sure." And I said, "Hey, Bruce, to make it interesting, let's do it out by the swimming pool." So Bruce told the first guy to brace himself. With no movement at all - no run, no nothing, just standing there in front of him - Bruce kicked this guy, lifted him off his feet, up into the air, and out into the pool! Well, that guy came up a Christian! From that moment on, he would have killed for Bruce.

Now the other guy hadn't gotten religion yet. He figured the other stuntman was pure chicken, So he really got down low, like a football lineman - all six-feet-two, 190 pounds of muscle - and braced himself. Bruce knocked him right off his feet, and into the water. And I don't mean with any preparation; just like that, just like you're standing talking and suddenly, like a backhand takeoff.... So, from that moment on, these guys loved Bruce.

Then I was doing a television show called Longstreet. I had sold the series with a 90-minute pilot film. Now the time had come to do the first, on-the-air one-hour episode. Together, Bruce and I worked out our opening story. I called it "The Way of the Intercepting Fist", which was, of course, the literal translation of "jeet kune do", Bruce's personal martial art. It was a very straightline story in which James Franciscus, the blind detective, is assaulted by some toughs in the beginning and told to keep off the dock. He is saved from being hurt by a Chinese antique dealer - Bruce - who just happens to be walking by and clobbers these guys with kicks and punches. The detective wants to get back at his assailants and asks Bruce what he did and how he did it. But Bruce doesn't want to teach him because the blind man's motivation for learning is wrong. So the story had to do with teaching Franciscus how to learn the way of the intercepting fist.

We had more fan mail on that episode than on any of the other shows we did in the series. Bruce, in turn, got a tremendous volume of letters and reactions from both critics and viewers. As a matter of fact, it was that episode which gave him, I like to believe, his first good film to show himself off to the world with pride and dignity as an oriental martial artist. And even though I wrote it, I think it probably was the best martial art film that has ever been on the air. What I did was simply to take many of the things Bruce had taught me and put them into the script. In any event, as a result of that episode, the network (ABC) and Paramount wanted Bruce in more episodes. Ultimately we used him in three other Longstreets during that year before he went to Hong Kong and rose to superstar status. It was after this first TV episode he was approached by Ted Ashley of Warner Bros. and by Screen Gems (as well as by Paramount) to sign for a series they hoped to develop for him.

Longstreet was the last thing Bruce did in America in terms of films until he went to Hong Kong and did the other films, and then I lost close track of him, although I did see him last year in Hong Kong while I was there doing research on another film. He met me at the airport and took me to dinner. It was such an incredible thing to watch the difference in his lifestyle - between the U.S. and Hong Kong - because here in the States he was always fighting the battle any minority person has to fight. I happen to be engaged to an actress from Vietnam, and I can tell you it's almost impossible for an Asian actress or actor to get much of a part in American films. This was the thing that Bruce battled and that my fiancee battles constantly with little success. Bruce did beat it. When he was here, he never compromised his dignity. As he said, he would never take a part as a pigtailed coolie. He would never play a "heathen Chinese". He was always Bruce Lee.

It was incredible that Bruce always knew he would someday be the most important star in the world. I had serious doubts he would ever achieve what he ultimately achieved. In terms of his being one of the great martial artists of all time, I didn't have any doubts. And I knew he had tremendous magnetism on the screen. When I saw his first two Chinese-made films in Hong Kong, I was absolutely delighted to see that same force and energy, which he projected here in our TV series, come out even more there. But to predict that he would have the success that he did around the world . . . it was like a dream that couldn't come true. It was like saying that the oriental minority is no longer a minority but has been accepted. Bruce was more than just a single success story. He represented a whole race finally being accepted in films.

There is so much emotion on my part in terms of what Bruce meant to me. It wasn't just the fact that he taught me martial arts. It was the fact that he was the first person who ever taught me to see one of the underlying reasons why I studied martial arts in the beginning - that my relationship with men had never been the way a lot of other men's relationships seem to be naturally. I am a writer. I am essentially a very private person. I never hung out with the boys. Unlike a lot of guys who go out bowling on Thursday nights with the guys, I never had any men friends. All of my friends were women. You begin to wonder. You say to yourself, "Hey, I wonder if maybe something's the matter with me. Why am I not like the other guys?"

I never cared too much for football. Baseball puts me to steep. I always went in for individual sports. I was on the fencing team at USC for three years. But that's man-to-man. And that's why I loved martial arts. It was me against the other guy. I never liked team stuff, and Bruce made all that come clear - about what all that means.

Bruce was the first man I ever put my arm around. We are taught in this country that if you touch a guy maybe you're a fag, so we are always kind of reluctant to have physical contact with men - except in sports.

When I tell you that I loved this man, it was because he made me realize that you should look at all human beings not in a sexual sense but in a human sense. They aren't just men and women; they are people. Bruce cleared up in my head, for all time, the confusion about that. Now I can take a guy's hand if I feel like it and hold it, and if someone calls me a fag, I laugh at them. I don't even get hostile because it's no challenge; it's no threat.

Bruce taught me so many things without teaching me. He was a very remarkable human being. He may be the only person I ever met in my whole life, and may ever meet, who was truly a master of what he did. It's kind of impossible to meet guys like that. Well, I guess I do know others. I have tremendous respect, affection, and love for Tak Kubota, who, in shotokan karate, is an absolute perfect master. Jhoon Rhee, whom I know and am very fond of, is a master of tae kwon do. These are also great, great men in terms of their total dedication, their simplicity.

Bruce was very pure. He was only one thing. He was a master. He was, in a sense, almost inhuman in his ability. He never stopped his dedication or his training. James Coburn and I went to India with him on The Silent Flute. We were on a research and reconnaissance trip. All the time we were there, Bruce would be kicking, or stretching, or punching, or moving. He was like a cat. But when he was still, he was still. He was always aware of his body and of his art, and that's all he lived for.  He was the most dedicated man I've ever known in my life.