From screen to page
Film faves Lee, Hayden shine in new books
Martial arts icon Bruce Lee wanted to be known around the world, and he built the perfect platform to do so as an international film star. An accidental actor, Sterling Hayden never felt right about appearing on movie screens anywhere and was more at ease at the wheel of a ship on the high seas.
Both struggled, in different times and places, to achieve their dreams. Hayden grew up poor in the United States in the 1920s and 1930s, Lee in middle-class Hong Kong in the 1940s and 1950s. Selfdoubt bedevilled Hayden while Lee brimmed with selfconfidence.
New biographies explore with unusual depth the private lives of these unlikely movie stars, whose screen legacies rely on just a handful of films. Lee is best remembered in the U.S. for Fist of Fury (1972) and Enter the Dragon (1973), released the month he died. Hayden starred in two film-noir classics, The Asphalt Jungle (1950) and The Killing (1956), and he had prominent supporting roles in the landmark films Dr. Strangelove (1964) and The Godfather (1972).
Filled with recollections from colleagues, friends and family, Matthew Polly’s Bruce Lee: A Life is proof that dogged research and sharp insight lie at the foundation of any successful biography.
Lee (1940-1973) was born in the U.S. and appeared in Hong Kong films as a child. A natural charmer even as a youngster, his antics away from the cameras threatened his future as he cultivated a reputation as a street fighter.
Martial arts became his passion as well as a tool for self-discipline. Sent to Seattle as a teenager after his expulsion from private school and trouble with the law, Lee matured and found a sense of purpose — to revolutionize martial arts. He did so by mixing traditional kung fu with his own superfast, freewheeling fighting style.
Few roles followed in an American entertainment industry that had little use for Asian actors beyond stereotypes. Stardom in Asia and beyond came via Hong Kong action films like The Big Boss (1971). Lee used that surprising success to start calling the shots on his films, though he made only a handful before his death.
In Sterling Hayden’s Wars, author Lee Mandel makes the case that Hayden (1916-1986) fought against a dysfunctional childhood, the Nazis, the Hollywood establishment, the communist witch hunt of the 1950s, an ex-wife and, most of all, himself. No matter what he achieved, Hayden felt like a faker.
Lee’s accidental death at 32 was linked to brain swelling caused, some concluded, by a drug reaction, but Polly makes a convincing argument for heat stroke. What could have been a singular presence in world cinema instead became an endearing cult figure.
Hayden was 70 when he died of cancer after a lifetime of regrets he sought to soften with alcohol and hashish. Fate had the last laugh: The pursuit Hayden cared for least remains the reason he’ll be remembered.