Linda Lee Cadwell – Bruce Lee’s Widow Net Worth, Biography
Who is Linda Lee Cadwell?
Linda Emery was born on March 21, 1945 in Everett, Washington State, USA. A martial artist, writer and teacher, she is perhaps best known as the widow of martial arts legend Bruce Lee. Tragedy struck her life after the sudden death of his husband. Decades later, the sudden death of their child also came as a shock.
The Wealth of Linda Lee Cadwell
As of the beginning of 2020, Linda Lee Cadwell’s net worth is estimated to be over $10 million, earned through success on numerous fronts. She received royalties from Bruce Lee’s posthumous releases and also inherited much of his wealth. She has also written books and attended a martial arts school.
Happy 72nd Birthday Linda Lee Cadwell (born March 21, 1945).
Posted by Bruce Lee On Tuesday March 21, 2017
Life and career
Linda is of English, Irish and Swedish descent. Growing up in Everett, she developed an interest in martial arts during high school, where she watched Bruce Lee give a demonstration of kung fu. At that time he was studying at university and she wanted to learn more about the trade. She enrolled at the University of Washington and became his student.
This eventually grew into something more, as the two began a romance and Wed in 1964 when Linda dropped out of college despite being only a few units short of graduating.
She focused on starting a family with the martial artist, and they had two children. She also focused on learning and then teaching the martial art of Wing Chun along with her husband. The martial art focuses on strong legs and quick arm movements for defense, and legend has it that it was created by a female monk. This martial art would later become the springboard for Bruce Lee’s creation, Jeet Kune Do.
Bruce Lee
from Bruce Lee Jeet Kune Do was a hybrid of several martial arts he had learned, combining multiple elements of martial arts from different parts of the world, which also had a philosophical aspect – Jeet Kune Do is said to be the forerunner of modern mixed martial arts.

During the 20th century, Bruce rose to fame thanks to his physical abilities and became one of the most influential martial artists of his time. He appeared in numerous films and found success in both Hong Kong and Hollywood. Some of his projects include “Way of the Dragon”, “Enter the Dragon” and “The Game of Death”.
His portrayal and the popularity of his films, as well as his art, helped pave the way for Asians in Hollywood, helping to spark the Western world’s interest in martial arts. He helped move Asian Americans from being typically portrayed as disenfranchised in Hollywood movies to stronger individuals. However, he died at the age of 32 due to an allergic reaction to a painkiller called Equagesic.
Be first dead, he suffered from multiple problems, including persistent headaches that affected his work. The painkiller would have reacted with numerous drugs he was already taking, leading to a reaction with fatal consequences.
Life After Bruce Lee – Second Tragedy
After his death, Linda continued to promote Jeet Kune Do and teach martial arts with her family. She raised her two children to become martial artists and later wrote the book “Bruce Lee: The Man Only I Knew”. Later on, a movie called “Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story” was made which is heavily inspired by her book. Her son Brandon would follow in his father’s footsteps and become a Hollywood star as well.
He was even going to portray the Marvel character Shang-Chi, after multiple encounters with Marvel and its founder Stan Lee, but the project never came to fruition. Brandon had worked on numerous television shows and movies during his career. However, disaster struck when he was filming a scene in the movie called “The Crow”. effect. However, they inadvertently left behind the primer, which was enough to fire a projectile at him during the shoot. He was hit in the abdomen, and after attempts at surgery failed, he got passed away.
Other relationships and passing on the legacy
In the mid-1980s, Linda began a relationship with Tom Bleecker and the two married in 1988, but the marriage lasted only two years. A year later, she met stockbroker Bruce Cadwell and the two got married. They now live in a Rancho Mirage, California, where they live quietly away from the spotlight.
Her promotion and work for Jeet Kune Do was passed down to her daughter, Shannon Lee. She is also a martial artist who studied her father’s martial arts during her childhood.
She later started an acting career where she appeared in films such as “High Voltage”, “Enter the Eagles” and “Ragon: the Bruce Lee Story”. She also worked with Sammo Hung in “Martial Law” and the movie “Epoch”. She later helped establish and manage the Bruce Lee Foundation, which aims to commemorate and continue the work her father started.
During the latter part of her career, she began to focus more on behind-the-scenes work in the entertainment industry, becoming a producer of several documentaries and films based on his father’s work. In 2015, she started working on the show called “Warrior” which was an idea of her father and the show started airing on Cinemax in 2019.
Jeet Kune Do
Bruce Lee created Jeet Kune Do after realizing during his fights that Wing Chun wasn’t good enough to sustain fights. The martial art still relied heavily on the basic concepts of Wing Chun, but incorporated other fighting styles to help optimize every aspect of the art. Bruce Lee emphasized practice and repetition to improve skill, removing what was not essential and adding only what was necessary to improve. He also wanted to improve the body through proper nutrition and training, as the body could not function optimally without proper fuel.
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