Shannon Emery Lee (born April 19, 1969) is an American actress, martial artist and businesswoman. She is the daughter of martial arts film star Bruce Lee and Linda Lee Cadwell, the granddaughter of Cantonese opera singer Lee Hoi-Chuen, and the younger sister of Brandon Lee.
Personal life
Shannon Lee was born on April 19, 1969 as the second child to Bruce Lee and Linda C. Emery and her family lived in Hong Kong from 1971 to 1973, after which her mother moved back to the United States following the death of her father. Together, they lived in Seattle, Washington and Los Angeles. Shannon grew up in Rolling Hills, California.
Graduating from The Chadwick School in 1987, Lee then attended Tulane University in New Orleans, where she studied voice and graduated in 1991. She moved back to Los Angeles in 1993 after her brother's death to pursue acting. She married lawyer Anthony Keasler in 1994, and later gave birth to their daughter. In her youth, she studied jeet kune do, the martial art system invented by her father, under Richard Bustillo, one of her father's students. However, her serious studies didn't begin until the late 1990s. To train for parts in action movies, she studied jeet kune do with Ted Wong.
She studied taekwondo under Dung Doa Liang and wushu under Eric Chen. She also studied under the tutelage of the director of Enter the Eagles, Yuen De, Jackie Chan’s Chinese opera brother. Because the film, Enter the Eagles, required her to fight Benny Urquidez, Urquidez taught her kickboxing.
Description
- Chinese name : 李香凝 (traditional)
- Chinese name : 李香凝 (simplified)
- Birth name : Shannon Emery Lee
- Ancestry : Shunde, Guangdong, China
- Born : April 19, 1969 (age 45), Los Angeles, California, U.S.
- Occupation : Business person, Actress
- Years active : 1993–present
- Spouse(s) : Anthony Ian Keasler (1994 – Present)
- Children : 1
- Parents : Bruce Lee (1940–1973), Linda Lee Cadwell (born 1945)
Lee made her acting debut playing a cameo in her father's biopic film Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story in 1993. She went onto appear in the direct-to-video films Cage II (1994) and High Voltage (1997). In 1998 she made her first Hong Kong produced action film And Now You're Dead, directed by Corey Yuen, co-starring Michael Wong and Anita Yuen.
On television, she guest-starred in an episode of the television series Martial Law alongside Sammo Hung in 1998 and appeared in the science-fiction television film Epoch, which first aired on the Sci Fi Channel in 2000. She was also the television host of the first season of WMAC Masters. Lee is currently the president of the Bruce Lee Foundation.
She sang on the band Medicine's album The Mechanical Forces of Love in 2003. She sang a cover of "I'm in the Mood for Love" for the movie China Strike Force (2000), which starred Leehom Wang and Aaron Kwok. She is the executive producer of the 2008 television series The Legend of Bruce Lee, based on her father's life. She is also an executive producer of the 2009 documentary film, How Bruce Lee Changed the World.
Filmography Producer Credits:
- 2009 - How Bruce Lee Changed the World - Executive Producer
- 2008 - The Legend of Bruce Lee - Executive Producer (China)
- 2002 - Never Get Outta the Boat
- 2002 - She Me and Her (Europe)
- 2001 - Epoch
- 2001 - Lessons for an Assassin
- 1998 - Martial Law - episode Take Out
- 1998 - Gwan Geun See Dam or Enter the Eagles (Hong Kong)
- 1998 - Blade
- 1997 - High Voltage
- 1995 - WMAC Masters
- 1994 - Cage II: The Arena of Death
- 1993 - Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story
- 2003 - Medicine: The Mechanical Forces of Love (singer/co-writer)
- 2000 - China Strike Force Soundtrack - I'm in the Mood for Love (singer)
- 1993 - Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story Soundtrack - California Dreamin (singer)
Currently
- Shannon is the proud mother of daughter, Wren,
- the CEO of Bruce Lee Enterprises (a global licensing company),
- the CEO of Leeway Media (a production company),
- President of the Board of Directors for the Bruce Lee Foundation (a California 501(c)(3) public charity).
Source : Wikipedia / Bruce Lee Foundation