Actual Footage Of Bruce Lee’s Funeral, Including His Casket, Was Used In His Last Film
Wikimedia CommonsRobert Clouse used archival footage of Bruce Lee for the actor’s final film, including footage from his real funeral.
Bruce Lee’s death was another one of those unfortunate and untimely Hollywood deaths that sent ripples across the world, made all the more heartbreaking when his son, Brandon Lee, died in an equally tragic manner.
Bruce Lee had been one of the biggest action movie stars in the world, and for years, movie studios continued to use archival footage of his fights in productions even after his death. Numerous “Bruce Lee” clones also came onto the scene, including Bruce Li, Bruce Le, Dragon Lee, and Bruce Lai.
But one posthumous Bruce Lee film stands out among the rest for its use of actual footage from Bruce Lee’s funeral.
According to Far Out, Lee had filmed around 100 minutes of footage for a Hong Kong martial arts film called Game of Death prior to his death.
In America, Robert Clouse was brought on to direct a localized version of the film. Rather than stick to the original plot, however, Clouse took a different direction, reworking the script into a revenge story about the mafia.
Released in 1978, the film only used roughly 11 minutes of Lee’s scenes from the original Game of Death. It also featured archival footage from Lee’s fights in other films — and footage of Bruce Lee’s open casket, for a scene in which the main character fakes his own death in order to escape the mafia.
It was certainly an odd choice, but evidently, it paid off. Although critics panned the film, it ended up being a commercial success. Perhaps audiences were just happy to see Bruce Lee in one final film.
James Doohan Had His Ashes Flown Into Space
Star Trek Archive/CBSJames Doohan portrayed Scotty on the original Star Trek television series.
James Doohan is best known for his role as chief engineer Montgomery Scott, a.k.a. Scotty, on the original Star Trek television series, but according to a 2020 report from The Verge, Doohan is also known for being the only person to be smuggled onto the International Space Station after his death.
In 2005, Doohan died at the age of 85, having never achieved his dream of getting on the ISS one day. His family wanted to honor that wish, or at the very least get him into space. In 2008, a portion of Doohan’s ashes were launched aboard SpaceX’s Falcon 1 rocket — which failed just minutes after launch.
In 2012, another portion of his ashes were sent into space aboard the SpaceX Falcon 9, and have since orbited the Earth more than 70,000 times. But still, Doohan never made it to the ISS, alive or dead.
That is, no one knew that he had.
It was later revealed that although all official requests to bring Doohan’s ashes onto the station were denied, Richard Garriott — one of the first private citizens to travel on the ISS — happened to smuggle a portion of Doohan’s ashes into the station’s Columbus module, along with a laminated photo of the late actor.
Garriott snuck the laminated photograph and the ashes on board and hid them away under the floor of the Columbus. For years, no one knew about it other than Garriott and Doohan’s family.
“It was completely clandestine,” Garriott said. “His family were very pleased that the ashes made it up there but we were all disappointed we didn’t get to talk about it publicly for so long. Now enough time has passed that we can.”
