Linda Claire Emery Lee Cadwell (née Emery; born March 21, 1945)[1] is a retired American teacher and writer, the widow of martial artist and actor Bruce Lee (1940–1973), and the mother of actor Brandon Lee (1965–1993) and actress Shannon Lee (born 1969).[2] She is the author of the Bruce Lee biography Bruce Lee: The Man Only I Knew, upon which the film Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story (1993) is based, as well as the founder, a former trustee of, and an unpaid advisor of the Bruce Lee Foundation.
Life and career
She was born in Everett, Washington, the daughter of Vivian R. (née Hester; 1911–1998)[3] and Everett Emery (1910–1950).[4][5] Her family was Baptist and of Swedish, Irish, and English descent.[6][7]
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.[citation needed]
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.[citation needed]
On March 31, 1993, her son Brandon was accidentally shot to death by a prop gun while filming The Crow.[10]
Cadwell has continued to promote Bruce Lee's martial art Jeet Kune Do. She retired in 2001, and her daughter Shannon, the current head of 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.[citation needed]
