Linda Lee Cadwell

She was born in Everett, Washington, the daughter of Vivian R. (Hester) and Everett Emery.[2][3] Her family was Baptist and of Swedish, Irish, and English descent.[4][5] She met Bruce Lee while she was attending Garfield High School, where Bruce came to give a kung fu demonstration; he was attending the University of Washington at the time. Eventually, she became one of his kung fu students when she was attending the University of Washington, studying to become a teacher.

She took lessons from Lee while attending college. They married on August 17, 1964. Linda was a few credits short from graduation. They had two children, Brandon Lee and Shannon Lee. Bruce Lee had opened his own kung fu school at the time and was teaching Wing Chun, which would later serve as the basis for Jeet Kune Do. He died suddenly on July 20, 1973, of an allergic reaction to an analgesic.[6][7]

Linda married Tom Bleecker in 1988, and they divorced in 1990. She later wed stockbroker Bruce Cadwell in 1991 and they lived in Rancho Mirage, California.

On March 31, 1993, her son Brandon was accidentally shot to death by a prop gun while filming The Crow.[8]

Cadwell has continued to promote Bruce Lee's martial art Jeet Kune Do. She retired in 2001, and her daughter Shannon (who now heads the Lee family estate), together with son-in-law Ian Keasler, run the Bruce Lee Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to teaching Bruce Lee's philosophy on martial arts and his writing on philosophy.

• Bruce Lee Foundation website
• Linda Lee Cadwell at IMDb