Description:

Lee Bruce



Autograph letter signed “Bruce,” with “Kato, Bruce Lee” in text, two pages, 8.5” x 11”, separate sheets. To Taky. On “Twentieth Century-Fox Television Inc., Box 900, Beverly Hills, California,” stationery. With original 9.5” x 4” studio airmail envelope postmarked Inglewood, California, November 3, 1966. Addressed by Lee to “Mr. Taky Kimura / 908 - 8th Ave / Seattle 4, Wash.” On back flap Bruce Lee has penciled, "Let Fred Sato and different friends / know of this coming episode ' The / Preying Mantis'". Fine condition.



In full, “A letter to let you know that the ‘Preying Mantis’ episode will be on the 18th of Nov., which is 2 weeks from this Friday (we’re pre-empty [sic] because of a special). Also, a week after that ‘The Hunter & the Hunted’, an episode in which I do Gung Fu without the mask. The show is doing bad, rating wise. Dozier is trying to make it go by changing it into an hour show. Whether or not we can change it remains to be seen. For our sake, we better. Next week I’m doing a pictorial layout of Gung Fu in color in the Doger [sic] stadium for T.V. Guide. You know, whether or not this show will go, the show will last at least till March. So Gung Fu will have enough exposure and so is Kato, Bruce Lee. The schools will definitely go. I’ll discuss with you in more detail. I’m preparing for it. Let’s make use of this opportunity buddy. Take care.”



In 1964, Bruce Lee to gave a demonstration at Ed Parker’s First International Karate Tournament in Long Beach, California. Lee used Taky as his partner and demonstrated his blindfolded chi sao techniques. In the audience was Jay Sebring, a well-known hairstylist to the stars, and one of the victims of the Manson family Sharon Tate murders in 1969. One of his clients was producer William Dozier who had mentioned to Sebring that he was looking for an actor to play the role of Charlie Chan’s son in a television series he was developing. Dozier later invited Lee to come to Los Angeles for a screen test. The producer was impressed. The series was shelved, but in 1965, Dozier signed Bruce Lee to a one-year option for a role in his planned television series, “The Green Hornet.”



“The Green Hornet” premiered on ABC on September 9, 1966. Bruce Lee organized his “school,” the Jun Fan Gung Fu Institute in Chinatown in Los Angeles, while the series was still on, but barely. The school opened on February 9, 1967. The last new episode of “The Green Hornet” was televised on March 24, 1967. “The Green Hornet” was cancelled after one season, 26 episodes, because of its low ratings partially due, according to Bill Dozier, its producer and narrator, to the success of “Batman” (aired 1966-1968) which his Greenway Productions also produced. “It may be because we turned Batman into a camp character that people refuse to buy Green Hornet or anyone else in a mask, who isn’t treated that way,” said Dozier in an article published in the March 19, 1967 edition of “The Los Angeles Times.” Van Williams (The Green Hornet) and Bruce Lee (Kato) guest starred on the March 1, 1967 and March 2, 1967, episodes of “Batman.” The 1952 musical “Hans Christian Andersen,” starring Danny Kaye, preempted “The Green Hornet” on November 4, 1966. Popular in Hong Kong, “The Green Hornet” was known as “The Kato Show.”



Bruce Lee’s first Gung Fu school was in Seattle, Washington. Taky Kimura was Lee’s assistant instructor at Seattle’s Jun Fan Gung Fu Institute and later, head instructor; Bruce Lee’s Chinese name was Lee Jun Fan. Kimura was 36 when he had first met 18-year-old Bruce Lee in Seattle in 1959. He was best man at Linda and Bruce Lee's wedding in 1964 and one of the pallbearers at Bruce Lee's funeral nine years later.



This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.



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