Linda Lee Cadwell

• Name — Linda Lee Cadwell • Birth Name — Linda Claire Emery • Born — 21 March 1945 • Birthplace — Everett, Washington, U.S. • Other Names — Linda Lee • Education — University of Washington • Occupation — * Teacher • martial artist • writer • Years Active — 1964–2001 • Notable Works — Bruce Lee: The Man Only I Knew (1975) The Bruce Lee Story (1989) • Children — * Brandon • Shannon • Website — bruceleefoundation.com

Cadwell was born and raised in Everett, Washington, the daughter of Vivian R. (née Hester; 1911–1998) and Everett Emery (1910–1950). Her family was Baptist and of Swedish, Irish, and English descent. Cadwell's father died of a heart attack when she was five years old; she, her mother, and older sister subsequently moved to Seattle, where she attended Edward Meany Junior High. When Cadwell was eight, her mother remarried to a man who she says "did not participate in being a parent to us, not as a Dad and not financially at all either."

• Illustration — Cadwell shooting a documentary about Bruce Lee in 1998 Cadwell met Bruce Lee while she was attending Garfield High School, where Lee 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 doctor. Cadwell's mother disapproved of the relationship due to Lee's ethnicity. They dated for about a year before they married on August 17, 1964. They had two children, Brandon (born 1965) and Shannon (born 1969). Lee died suddenly on July 20, 1973, of an allergic reaction to an analgesic. Cadwell married Tom Bleecker in 1988, and they divorced in 1990. She married Bruce Cadwell in 1991, and they settled in southern California. On March 31, 1993, Brandon was accidentally shot to death by an improperly loaded prop gun while filming The Crow. Cadwell became a grandmother when her daughter Shannon, who married Ian Kessler in 1994, gave birth to a daughter in 2003.