With a deep breath, Jackie leaps off the building, defying gravity as he soars through the air. Time seems to slow down as he executes a flip and slides down a rooftop.

As Jackie lands safely on the top of a moving truck. The satisfaction of nailing the stunt fills his veins, reminding him why he has dedicated his life to this craft. But there is no time to rest, the movie demands more. He swings himself into the front seat of the truck and continues a thrilling car chase through a narrow alleyway the final climactic fight scene against his most dangerous enemy.

With unwavering determination, Jackie embraces each challenge, pushing himself to the limit. He throws himself into fight scenes with unmatched energy, combining his martial arts skills with a touch of humor that makes audiences fall in love with him. Every punch, every kick is meticulously executed, leaving no room for error.

Being Jackie Chan in a blockbuster movie means embracing fear, defying gravity, and giving everything for the sake of entertainment. It is a journey filled with adrenaline, skill, and an unwavering dedication to creating movie magic. And for Jackie, there is no greater reward than seeing his hard work and breathtaking stunts come to life on the big screen, inspiring generations to chase their dreams, just as he has.

Kong-sang Chan, later known as Jackie Chan, was born on April 7, 1954,  in Hong Kong, China to Charles and Lee-Lee. At the time his parents were a cook and a housekeeper. They were poor at the time and worked for a French diplomat and lived in a small house in the back of his house. From a young age, Kong-sang’s father taught him to exercise and practice martial arts. Kung Fu was the popular martial arts style where he lived and used lots of kicks and acrobatic movements. Because they were poor, Kong-sang and his father had to find simple ways to exercise rather than going to a typical dojo.

Kong-sang struggled in school. He didn’t like to sit still and often got in trouble when he got restless. He often got into fights in his neighborhood and at school. Instead, he wanted to be outside and play which is natural for children! Fortunately, Kong-sang’s parents were attentive to his needs and started looking at other options for his school. They found a nearby school called The Chinese Drama Academy, which prepared students for Chinese opera and might be a good fit for a more active child like Kong-sang.

Kong-sang was surprised when he visited the school. Rather than sitting at desks and doing traditional school work, children at this school were doing kung fu and dancing around during the day. Kong-sang thought it looked like a pretty good school and his parents decided to enroll him for ten years! Little did Kong-sang know, what a challenge the Chinese Drama Academy would be! The masters of the school were very strict. Some of the kids made fun of him. He had to sleep on the floor at night and during the day they worked his body very hard. Every minute of the day they were busy running, kicking, punching, doing handstands, and cleaning. When students misbehaved, they got hit with a stick. And to Kong-sang’s surprise, he still had to do schoolwork on top of it all! 

Kong-sang missed his parents and only saw his mother once a week. Life at the Chinese Drama Academy was very hard, but he was determined to stick it out. When he saw other children performing on stage and being applauded, he wanted to work hard, be just like them, and get the same attention. Eventually, he got to perform on a stage and received his first role in a film called Big and Little Wong Tin Bar. 

By the time Kong-sang graduated from The Chinese Drama Academy, the opera wasn’t as popular so he knew his best would be to find a job in the movie industry. He auditioned to be a stuntman and got his first job. A stuntman is used in movies to do the dangerous work that actors avoid so they don’t get hurt. They might jump out of moving cars, off tall buildings, or take a punch to make the action look more realistic. Over time, Kong-sang got better and better at being a stuntman, but his real dream was to be a movie star not just someone who did the difficult work but that no one recognized. His next job was a stunt coordinator who helped direct all of the stunts. 

Finally, he got his first chance and was given a small role in a movie called Hand of Death. It wasn’t a big role, but it gave him hope that someday he might be a big star. He dreamed that he might be as popular as Bruce Lee, the most famous Chinese kung fu movie star. Unfortunately, movies weren’t as popular at that time in China and Kong-sang had to move to Australia where his parents now lived. He worked many different jobs to support himself. At one job, instead of using his real name, he introduced Kong-sang as “Jack.” His co-workers started calling him “Jackie.” 

Around this time – we’ll call him Jackie now – got a message from Hong Kong asking him to come back and star in a new movie, a remake of Bruce Lee’s Fists of Fury. He would be paid well and best of all, he’d be a star and be acting! Jackie hurried back to Hong Kong and starred in the new movie. Jackie had all of the moves and could do all of the stunts, but he was different than Bruce Lee. He liked being funnier rather than serious. At this time, he wrote his own movie and starred in it. It was called Half a Load of Kung Fu. Rather than trying to be just like Bruce Lee, Jackie wanted to be his own kind of action hero: a funny one who the audience would be impressed by but also laugh at.

Jackie Chan’s first big movie using his own style was Snake in Eagle’s Shadow about a kung fu student who is better than his own master and learns his moves from an old man on the street. The movie was a huge hit! Jackie was happy to know audiences enjoyed his funny action-hero persona. Drunken Master was his next big hit turned him into a popular movie star all over China. 

Jackie’s next job took him to the United States, to film a new movie in Texas. Unfortunately, Jackie struggled with English and didn’t feel as comfortable acting because of the language and the style that which U.S. films were shot. Next, he returned to Hong Kong and was able to continue his acting as a celebrity there. 

In Hong Kong, Jackie continued acting and doing dangerous stunts. It was one of his favorite parts of the job even though it was very dangerous. During one stunt he fell from a 50-foot-tall clock tower, through two cloth awnings, and to the ground. Another time, he slid down a 21-story building. A few times he was hurt very badly, but Jackie continued acting and doing stunts because it was his passion and he didn’t care about the risks.

In 1995, Jackie took another shot at filming in Hollywood and his first breakout American film was Rumble in the Bronx. He did some dangerous stunts and plenty of kung fu, and the film became a big hit. His next big film was a buddy-cop movie starring alongside comedian Chris Tucker. The name of the film was Rush Hour and ended up being a huge hit earning over $140 million dollars. Jackie was finally a star in the United States as well as Asia. 

For the next several years, Jackie continued to film hits in Hollywood including a second and third Rush Hour movies, Shanghai Noon and Shanghai Knights with Owen Wilson, The Tuxedo, Around the World in 80 Days, a new Karate Kid film, and also did the voice for Master Monkey in Kung Fu Panda. 

Later, he also started a stunt school for aspiring young actors and started his own coffee shops, restaurants, theaters, clothing lines, and other businesses across Asia. 

Not only has Jackie become known for his acting, kung fu, and stunts, but also for his charitable donations around the world. He’s taken his success and with gratitude used it to help others in need, which includes building schools and curing illnesses.

Like Jackie, you can remember the importance of physical exercise. Even when Jackie was poor and didn’t have access to a real gym or sports clubs, he ran through the neighborhoods near his home, used heavy objects to strengthen his muscles, kicked, and practiced his acrobatics. You can work through hard things even when they are difficult and continue to practice whatever it is you are passionate about. Jackie of often turned to humor when life was hard and even though everyone wanted him to be like Bruce Lee, he found his own way in the world, a unique way of acting that he made his own. 

Take a moment and think about how you can apply what you’ve learned about Jackie Chan to your own life.

Jackie once said, “If everyone does some good, think of what a good world this will be.”

When asked how he accomplished great things, Jackie said, “I do small things. I try to do good things every day.”

And finally, “Do not let circumstances control you. You [can] change your circumstances.”

The post Jackie Chan Story for Kids appeared first on Bedtime History: Podcast and Videos For Kids.

Early Life

Jim Henson was born in September 1936 in Mississippi. His family loved jokes and laughing. Jim spent a lot of time with his grandparents, who helped him create amazing art projects. He also loved to go to the theater and watch movies – and especially loved Westerns and movies that took place in far-off places. He and his friends would spend their play time dressing up and acting out the movies they saw, using homemade props and their big imaginations. 

Jim also grew up listening to radio broadcast shows, and his favorite performer was Edgar Bergen, a ventriloquist. A ventriloquist is someone who can talk without moving his lips or mouth. Jim saw this and thought it was amazing. Later his family moved to Maryland, and they purchased their first TV when Jim was 13 years old. Jim watched a show called Kukla, Fran and Ollie which featured puppet performers. He loved the way the puppets appeared to be real creatures, that people could laugh with, share stories with, and be friends with. The puppets were alive in a way that was magical. Jim dreamed about being on television himself.

As soon as Jim turned 16, he started looking for a job in television with all the local stations. Sadly they all said no. While this was hard for Jim, he didn’t give up. He later heard that one of the stations was looking for a puppeteer, so he checked out some books on puppetry, built some puppets, and applied for the job. He got the job of building puppets for a Saturday morning children’s program called The Junior Morning Show. With hard work, practice, and determination, he was accomplishing his goal!

College

Jim Henson went to college at the University of Maryland, College Park. In college, he took a puppetry class and produced a puppet show called Sam and Friends for WRC-TV. The puppets in this show were early versions of what would later become the Muppets, including an early prototype (or version) of Kermit the Frog. While Jim worked on the show, he invented new puppetry and filming methods that are still in use today, such as allowing the puppeteer to work off-camera by using the frame defined by the camera shot. At this time, most puppets were made from wood and were not very expressive. Instead, Jim used fabric-covered foam rubber to give his puppets a greater ability to express emotion. Instead of strings, he used rods to manipulate the puppets which also increased the range of expression of the puppets. 

While Jim was working on the Sam and Friends show, he met and worked with Jane Nebel, another student at the University. They would later begin dating and eventually get married in 1959.

First TV Shows

The success of Sam and Friends led to Henson’s puppets appearing on talk shows like The Steve Allen Show, The Jack Paar Program, and The Ed Sullivan Show. These are similar to the Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel Shows in our day. Henson’s puppets also became famous when they were used in TV commercials, such as the Wilkin Coffee Company commercial in Washington, D.C. 

Sesame Street

In 1969, Jim Henson was asked to join the team working on a new children’s program called Sesame Street. On the show, his Muppets would be characters who lived in the neighborhood of Sesame Street and interacted with the human characters. The show was meant to teach children how to read and count, as well as show children how to share, take turns, and get along. One thing kids loved was the variety of the Muppets; each character was a unique individual and represented a different type of personality. There was Big Bird, the eight-foot-tall yellow bird who is innocent and curious like a child; Oscar the Grouch, the monster that lives in the trash can and shows that it’s ok to be grouchy sometimes or have a different opinion; Elmo, the enthusiastic monster who loves to have fun and discover new things; Bert and Ernie, unlikely best friends who are completely opposite in just about every way (Bert loves oatmeal and pigeons while Ernie loves taking baths with is rubber duckie and playing jokes on Bert); Count von Count, the numbers-obsessed vampire; and Cookie Monster, who will do anything for his favorite food: cookies! It was a huge success, and the characters from Sesame Street are loved by many people who grew up with them. If you haven’t seen Sesame Street ask your parents because I’ll bet they have..

Jim Henson designed the puppets but also moved them around and performed them. These puppets included, Rowlf the dog, Ernie, Waldorf, the Swedish Chef, Guy Smiley, Dr. Teeth, Captain Vegetable…and many more!

To reach a wider audience, and bring his stories and characters to all kinds of people (kids and adults), Jim Henson created more Muppets and new shows for them to be the stars in. The Muppet Show was a variety show consisting of many different kinds of Muppets and a weekly guest star working together to put on a show for their television audience. With colorful characters like Miss Piggy (the demanding diva), Fozzie the Bear (the loveable stand-up comedian with the terrible jokes), Animal (the wild drummer for the band Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem), Gonzo (the stunt performer with the chickens), Scooter (the stage manager of the show), and Kermit the Frog (the leader of the whole gang), and superstar guest hosts like Julie Andrews, Elton John, Vincent Price, and Steve Martin, there was something on The Muppet Show for everyone. Although much of the show was chaotic, it showed people everywhere that in spite of the chaos and our differences, the most important thing is to focus on being together and having fun. 

The Muppets

The Muppets went on to star in feature films like The Muppet Movie, The Great Muppet Caper, and The Muppets Take Manhattan. Jim Henson also created the Henson Foundation to teach puppetry and improve the art and design of puppetry in the United States. Jim Henson combined puppetry and animatronics (puppet-like robots). He was even involved in the creation of one of the most famous puppets of all time- Yoda from the Star Wars movies!

Conclusion

Over the years, Jim Henson never lost sight of his vision of sharing his characters and stories with as many people as possible. He even shared his work with his five children; all of them began working with Muppets at an early age and were able to spend time with their father in this way. 

When asked about his dream Jim Henson said “…it’s about singing and dancing and making people happy. That’s the kind of dream that gets better the more people you share it with.”

Jim Henson started out with a dream of being on television, and throughout his life, he was able to reach people through television and other ways. He is an example of never giving up on a dream, and of helping people to come together and laugh and share the things that they love and enjoy in order to learn and have fun together. 

The post History of Jim Henson for Kids appeared first on Bedtime History: Podcast and Videos For Kids.

Imagine that you are living in South America in the 1940s.  Life is fun in Argentina, the country where you live, but also hard for your family and for many people you know.  Most people are poor and cannot find jobs that pay well.  The jobs that your aunts, uncles and parents have don’t pay very much.  And so people are not feeling very hopeful about their futures.  There is a lot of talk in the evenings about what people can do to make life better.  

You listen to what the adults talk about and one day, you go into the city with your mother and hear someone speaking on stage.  It is a famous woman who comes out.  She is dressed well and speaks with great passion about what should be done to make the lives of regular people better.  “Who is that?” you ask your mother.  “It is the president’s wife,” your mother responds.  “Her name is Eva Peron and she is a great saviour of our country, Argentina.”

Eva Peron was the wife of the president of Argentina in the 1940s.  She became very famous because she was good at speaking in public and she was passionate about helping poor people of her country.  People loved her and felt that she played a big role in improving the lives of the people of the time.  But Eva Peron was not always rich and famous.  She was actually born into a poor family, which helped her to understand the struggles of being poor. 

Eva Peron was born in May 1919 in Los Toldos, Argentina.  When she was born, her name was actually Maria Eva Duarte.  She was born to a poor family.  She grew up in poverty, meaning that she didn’t have a lot of money or access to good things in life.  She had three siblings, but her closest was a sister named Erminda and together, the two girls dreamt of becoming famous actresses.  They made up plays together and put them on for their parents and friends. 

Her mother was named Juana Ibaguren and her father was named Juan Duarte.  Unfortunately, when Eva was 7 years old, her dad died suddenly.  Everyone was very upset and their money problems suddenly got much worse.  Eva’s dad had previously been married and when he died, all of his money went to his first wife and children. Juana Ibaguren and her children were now even more poor than before.

Eva and her family struggled to have enough to eat and pay rent for their home.  So the older children had to get jobs to help earn money.  The family moved to Junin, a city in the Province of Buenos Aires in 1930.  The older children took jobs as teachers and cooks.  Eva’s mother also started taking in boarders, or people who pay money to stay at a home and be fed meals.  Eva’s mother also earned money by cooking and sewing clothes.

When Eva was 15 years old, she needed to get a job as well to contribute and bring in money.  But instead of taking one of the jobs that were available in their town, Eva did not lose sight of her dream to become an actress.  She decided to move to the big city of Buenos Aires to become an actress.  She packed her bags and caught a bus into the city.  There she found a cheap boarding house to stay at and she started trying out at various theatre houses for auditions.  

Eva was a talented actress and a beautiful young girl.  She found work at a number of theatre companies and landed roles in plays that they were performing.  While she was a teenager, Eva was in many plays and theatre productions and and even landed her first film role, or role on TV.  She also got a contract, or paid position, performing as a voice actress on the radio. 

Eva made a good amount of money as an actress and when she was about 20 years old, she decided to invest her money in starting a business.  To invest means to use your money to try to make more money.  Eva’s new business was an entertainment business called “the Company of the Theatre of the Air.”  In her new business, Eva produced radio programs like the ones she had acted in. 

At first business was difficult and stressful, but over time Eva had great success: she made a deal to create a special radio series in which she would act like famous women in history.  She was very excited to get the chance to play famous historical figures like Queen Elizabeth I and Catherine the Great.

When Eva was in her early 20s, she met a man that would dramatically change her life.  He was an older man named Juan Peron.  Juan was a colonel in the army and a government official.  They met in Buenos Aires and fell in love.  It wasn’t long before Juan asked Eva to marry him and they got married in 1945.  

Only one year later, Juan became the president of Argentina!  Can you imagine what it would be like to go from being an actress with a radio program to the president’s wife within one year?  That must certainly have been a wild time for Eva.  

Eva became a very powerful influence on Juan’s politics.  Influence means the power to shape how things are. Eva used her position as first lady to fight for causes she believed in.  This included fighting for women to have the right to vote and improving the lives of poor people in her country.  She also had a lot of influence over health andworker’s policies in the government while Juan was president. 

Because Eva was a voice actress on the radio, she was very good at speaking .. and very good at speaking in front of crowds. People who heard her speak liked listening to her a lot.  She spoke about all the ways that she wanted to help poor people make their lives better.  Eva started giving speeches while her husband was president.. And people loved her!  She was very easy to listen to and poor people who heard her speak loved to hear her message about how the president planned to help them.  

Eva became very popular.  Everywhere she went, people knew who she was and were very excited about her messages of hope for the future.  She became even more famous and she used her fame to continue spreading her message around the country of Argentina.  She spent about 5 years doing this and her popularity grew and grew.

Unfortunately, Eva started to experience health problems.  She wanted to continue working to help her fellow people of Argentina and to help poor people.  But unfortunately she got sicker and sicker and soon she was not able to work.  The people of Argentina were very sad when they learned that she was sick.  They brought her flowers and chanted her name.  They knew that she had helped them so much and they wished she would get well and stay with them for years to come. 

Eva made her last appearance in front of a crowd June 1952, when her husband was elected president for a second term.  She passed away the following month from cancer.  She was given a large funeral and millions of people showed up to say farewell.  It showed how much support Eva had from the Argentine people at the time. 

Eva Peron is a famous person in her home country of Argentina and around the world still today.  Many people are fascinated by the story of how a poor girl became a famous political power house.  Her life story has been made into a number of books, films and plays.  This includes a famous play called Evita in 1979. The most famous song is “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” and made her legacy even more known across the world.

Spend some time thinking about Eva and her life. Growing up, her life wasn’t easy but rather than sitting around and feeling sorry for herself, she started working and practicing to become an actress. It took time for her skills to grow and for her business to take off, but she stuck with it until it became successful. And when Eva became successful and the wife of the President, she used her power and influence for good. She spoke out for people who had less people, those who couldn’t vote or who were poor. Even though most of us don’t have the same power as Eva, we can use what we have to help others. This may mean donating clothes or food or money to help those in need. Our family likes to go to a place where we prepare and box food for people in need. Ask your parents if there’s a place like this near you where you can volunteer your time. Every little bit helps and makes the world a better place like Eva Peron strived for herself!

The post History of Eva Peron for Kids appeared first on Bedtime History: Podcast and Videos For Kids.

Have you ever wanted to invent something?  What if you were someone who enjoyed playing with technology, but everyone expected you to do something else very different?

That is what happened to Hedy Lamarr, one of the most famous actresses during the “Golden Age of Hollywood.” Hedy later became an inventor and helped invent the technology that later became the foundation of wireless communications, like the internet.

Hedy was born in Vienna in Austria-Hungary in 1913.  When she was born her real name Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler.  “Hedy” was her nickname.  

Hedy was the only child in a Ukrainian Jewish family and her father was a successful bank director.  Her mother was a professional pianist and came from an upper-class Jewish family in Budapest, the capital of what is now called Hungary.  

When Hedy was a child, she showed an interest in acting.  She loved the theatre and film.  When she was 12 years old, she won a beauty contest in Vienna.  This encouraged her to pursue her dream of becoming an actress, as she had seen that many women in films at the time were very beautiful.

Hedy started to act in eastern European movies in Budapest.  When she was a teenager, she was discovered by an Austrian film director.  He cast her in a movie called “Ecstasy”, which became a popular movie internationally. 

Hedy decided to continue the momentum of this movie’s popularity and she flew to the United States and signed a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (or MGM) studio in Hollywood.  Momentum means to speed up and gain force. Sometimes when good things start to happen for you, in your career or otherwise in life, it is wise to take the opportunity to follow this momentum and see how far it can take you.

So Hedy moved to Hollywood and it was at this time that she changed her name from Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler to “Hedy Lamarr”.  She thought it would be easier for Americans to say and remember.

Hedy’s first American film was called Algiers and co-stared Charles Boyer. Everyone who saw the movie loved her and she became immediately popular.  At the time, she was considered to be one of the most beautiful and exotic of Hollywood’s female actresses.  Exotic means unique or from another country.  Americans hadn’t seen other actresses who looked liked her and they wanted to see her in more movies.

She started to star in a number of American movies throughout the 1930s and 1940s, including Lady of the Tropics, Boom Town and Samson and Delilah.  This was later called “the Golden Age of Hollywood” because it was when Hollywood movies grew in popularity and there was a lot of glamour around the idea of working in studios on movies.

But Hedy’s life wasn’t all glitz and glamour.  Hedy lived in Europe before the start of World War II.  When she left for the United States to become a Hollywood actress, she left her family behind.  Unfortunately, later during the war, her home country of Austria was invaded by the Germans and Hedy had to help get her family out of Europe to safety in America.  It was not an easy thing to do, but Hedy was successful and her mother was able to escape. 

Hedy enjoyed acting, but she was not just a beautiful actress.  She was also very smart and after acting on many films, she became bored of just doing that.  She felt frustrated that at the time, women’s role in movies were often to just look beautiful and not to say too much.  So she started to develop her other interest: science and technology.

Hedy worked with her friend, the composer George Antheil, on a radio signaling device or “Secret Communications System” which was a way of changing radio frequencies to keep enemies from decoding messages.  They worked on this to help defeat the German Nazis that had invaded her home country of Austria and other parts of Europe. 

The work the that Hedy and George did later formed the foundation of what is now wireless communications.  This is fundamental to all sorts of technological advances including cell phones and the internet.  Unfortunately at the time, people did not appreciate how important their amazing invention was and so at the time she didn’t get credit for what she had done.

But when she was older, Hedy was recognized for her work on technology and won awards for the work that she and George had done.  

Hedy also had a family, including three children, and after living in the US for many years in 1953 she became an American citizen.

Hedy was reclusive in old age, which means she liked to be on her own and live away from society.  She lived her later years in Florida where she died on January 19, 2000 at the age of 86.

Hedy was an amazing woman and did a lot of remarkable things for someone of her time.  She is an example of someone who worked hard, both at acting and at her passion, science and inventing.  She overcame stereotypes, which means that she went beyond the expectations that other people had for her.

Hedy did not allow herself to be boxed in by who she was.  A lot of people assumed that she was a beautiful actress but probably not very smart.  Hedy proved to be both.  She realized that she could go beyond something that initially interested her and become a scientist as well, despite the fact that this was not common for women at the time.

We can learn from Hedy about the value of following your passion and believing in yourself.  She wanted to work in the science field and she wanted to contribute to the effort of stopping the invaders in the Second World War.  Her hard work and effort paid off, for herself and for the world, who benefitted from her efforts.

Is there something that you are interested in or a field that you would like to contribute to?  Like Hedy, you can make a difference by getting involved in a field that you are curious about, working hard and believing in yourself.  And who knows what importance your contributions will play in the world and in the future.

The post The History of Hedy Lamarr for Kids appeared first on Bedtime History: Podcast and Videos For Kids.

The year is 1955 and you live in Hong Kong.   You are a teenage boy and everyday, you study hard in school and then go to the Kung Fu training centre and practice Kung Fu for hours and hours.  Your dream is to become the best Kung Fu master in the world and your coaches are telling you that you are on the path.  If you study hard and practice hard, you may be a Kung Fu champion.  You are Bruce Lee, the most famous Kung Fu master in the world in the 1960s.  You don’t know it yet, but you will go on to become a movie star in China and then in America and around the world. 

Jun Fan (Bruce) Lee was born on November 27, 1940, in Chinatown, San Francisco, California. His father was a famous Chinese opera star.  He often toured around different countries with his opera. On one trip, Bruce’s dad took his wife on tour and while they were in the United States, she gave birth to a son there. 

Bruce was a happy and active baby.  According to the Chinese Zodiac Bruce was born in the hour and the year of the dragon. The Chinese Zodiac is an ancient system Chinese people used to predict the future. In traditional Chinese culture, that Bruce was a dragon was a strong and fortuitous omen.  An omen is an event that is meant to be a sign of things to come.

Bruce and his parents returned to Hong Kong when Bruce was just three months old.  His father’s opera tour was finished, so Bruce and his family moved back to Hong Kong to be near their family.  At the time, China was at war with another country called Japan, so Chinese people did not get out to do many fun activities.  However, after the war, Bruce’s dad continued to work in opera and also started to work as an actor in movies.

Because Bruce’s dad was an actor, he tried to help Bruce get in films as well.  Bruce was successful as a child actor.  He appeared in over 20 Chinese films. Bruce liked being in movies, but he also liked studying dance and kung fu.  

When Bruce was a teenager, he started to get into a lot of street fights.  Because a lot of teenage boys in China studied Kung Fu at the time, they would often try to fight each other in the streets to see who was the best.  Bruce Lee was a very good fighter, so many other teenagers wanted to challenge him to a fight to try to beat him.

During the street fights Bruce’s parents were worried that he would get hurt so they continued to encourage him to study Kung Fu so he could defend himself.  Bruce became a very good fighter and in 1958, Bruce won the Hong Kong school’s boxing tournament. There he knocked out the previous champion in the final fight.

When Bruce was 18, he got into another street fight in Hong Kong, and the police were called. This scared Bruce’s parents and they decided that Bruce should leave Hong Kong and move to the United States so that he could have a safer and happier life.

Bruce moved to the United States and at first, he went to stay with his older sister, Agnes Lee, who was already living with family friends in San Francisco. Bruce lived in  San Francisco for several months and then he moved to Seattle so that he could study at the University of Washington in Seattle.  In order to help pay for his education, Bruce worked as a waiter in a Chinese restaurant.  He also lived in the back room of the restaurant for free.

In 1964, Bruce met an American woman named Linda Emery and fell in love.  She was a fellow student studying at the university to become a teacher.  They got married and the next year, Linda gave birth to their son, Brandon Lee.  They later had a second child, a daughter named Shannon.

Two years later, in 1966, the Lees moved to Los Angeles and Bruce started to try to be in movies.  Like his dad before him, Bruce had decided that he wanted to be an actor.  One of Bruce’s first acting roles was on the tv show The Green Hornet (1966-1967), where he played the Hornet’s sidekick Kato. 

Bruce found that he was often being cast as a sidekick, because at the time there were not a lot of good roles for asian people in Hollywood movies.  He heard about how popular martial arts movies were becoming in Hong Kong and this was more interesting to Bruce than staying in Hollywood.  He was excited about the idea of being the star in movies and so he decided to return to Hong Kong.

Back in Hong Kong, Bruce began to get a number of great movie spots because of his acting and amazing kung fu skills.  He also started writing movies so that he could act in them.  And once he got the money to make the films, he would direct them too.  This included the movies The Big Boss (1971) and The Way of the Dragon (1972). These movies were very popular in Asia and they also started becoming very popular in America and around the world.

Bruce’s next film was called Enter the Dragon, and it was released in the United States by Warner Bros., which is one of the biggest Hollywood movie studios.

Unfortunately however, Bruce Lee died one month before Enter the Dragon was released.  Bruce never got to see himself starring in a Hollywood movie even though he had worked so hard to achieve this goal.  He was only 32 years old.

Enter the Dragon was a big hit though and it made a lot of money.  After Bruce died, he continued to be very famous as a movie star in America. After Americans saw Enter the Dragon, they wanted to see more of his films so they started watching the movies that he had made in Asia.

Bruce Lee is still remembered as an amazing athlete and actor who changed the way that people around the world looked at Asian people. 

Bruce also taught many people to love kung fu and martial arts.  He inspired people who saw his films to want to be good at kung fu like he was.  And while he was alive, Bruce opened a martial arts school and taught people who wanted to learn.

Bruce Lee is thought of as one of the most influential martial artists of all time and a pop culture icon of the 20th century. 

Is there a sport or hobby that you would like to be good at?  Do you have a vision of yourself as a famous actor or being able to travel the world sharing a particular skill?  Like Bruce Lee, you can find success at the things you are passionate about. The most important things you need are a vision of what you want, hard work and the ability to be adaptable.  Adaptable means to be able to change as things around you change.

Bruce traveled from Hong Kong to San Francisco when he was only 18 years old.  He had to learn a new language and a new culture.  Culture is the way people behave and do things in their part of the world. Bruce had to work very hard to make money and he continued to practice kung fu and work on his vision of becoming a movie star.  He was able to accomplish so many things in his short life due to his dedication and drive.  Bruce adapted to life in America and was flexible enough to move back to Hong Kong when he could see that it provided a better opportunity for himself and his family.  

We can all learn from Bruce Lee about the power of having a dream and working hard to make that dream a reality.

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