Bruce Lee, who died in 1973 and is buried in Lakeview Cemetery, was born 67 years ago this week, on Nov. 27, 1940. The most mysterious, least documented, and least photographed years of Bruce Lee's life were in Seattle between 1959 and 1964. During those years, Lee lived in a small attic section of Ruby Chow's restaurant on the corner of Broadway and Jefferson Street. A parking lot now sits where the restaurant was once located.
This period of time was arguably the most influential for one of the world's greatest contemporary martial artists and legends. Lee would graduate from Edison Technical School in 1960, which is now the location of Seattle Central Community College.
The following interview with Amy Sanbo may shed a little light on the beginnings of Bruce Lee and the life of the woman who challenged him. It all started some time between 1960 and 1961 at the Husky Union Building (HUB) on the University of Washington campus. When Bruce Lee grabbed Sanbo's arm as she was walking through the cafeteria, he started a relationship that would last about three years.
Sanbo, now a petite silver-haired woman, laughs often during a conversation at her place on Vashon Island. Sitting at her dining room table, which overlooks the waters of Puget Sound, I can hardly believe I have finally met her, a woman I have talked about as one of the most mysterious persons in Bruce Lee's life. Strong and confident, sharp and witty, there is fond laughter as she recalls her memories of Bruce Lee.
Every reference I had on Amy Sanbo described her as "the stunningly beautiful Japanese girl," and I can report that she is still stunningly beautiful. I always wondered why there were no photos of Sanbo. Perhaps it is because martial artists seem to always focus on men, but perhaps it is because Sanbo has never commercialized her relationship with Lee. Now, after finally locating the woman that Lee himself at one time tried to find in the summer of 1963, I am honored to be able to document some of her memories.
The quarter she met Lee, Sanbo had noticed a handsome young man at another table starting to sit closer and closer to the table where she regularly sat with her friends. When she finally walked past him, Sanbo recalls Lee suddenly said "hello" and grabbed her arm.
Sanbo recalls that moment.
"Oh, yes, Bruce trying to be masculine, or Bruce trying to be forceful - I guess the word is forceful - but in my mind at the time it was like 'Oh gees, what a jerk! [Laughs] Anyway, he was just trying to be direct," she said. But, Sanbo adds seriously, "I wasn't welcoming someone being forceful and then having my arm torn off my shoulder! And there he was, and there I was practically on the floor along with my books!"
Trained in ballet as a young child, Sanbo danced classically but loved rhythm and blues as well as jazz. When she met Lee, she met a Hong Kong cha-cha champion and someone who was just as agile on the floor as she. They would often go with friends to the Buddhist Temple and Nisei Vets, which held community dances, and dance to R& B. Perhaps this is where Lee learned to step out of structured dance steps and, as Sanbo put it, "get funky." Sanbo explains: "Not everybody can dance to the beat and it's not something you can teach. You either have it or you don't. Bruce had it."
Sanbo said that when Lee went to Hollywood she thought something good would happen to him there.
"I think he really wanted to make his fame somewhere. When he passed on in 1973, I was really devastated. I was in shock. I said to myself 'Why?' I was depressed for days. Bruce is pretty hard to forget, especially when I start dancing or training with someone who is kinetic like Bruce. But that is all tied back to Bruce - the dancing thing."
Of course, she still has her memories.
"It's really hard to recount everything, but I could talk about Bruce for days, maybe for years, because he really is that big in my memories," she said. "I felt we had a lot in common, and it was a lot of fun to be with him," she sighed.
Not surprisingly, there remains something of the question what if.
"Sometimes I felt that I could have been with him forever. He had a lot of qualities I liked, but who knows, it's likely we would have killed each other," she said with a laugh. "I think we were productive together, but the most important thing was to accomplish something. Bruce would have liked that."
Dancer and award-winning playwright, Amy Sanbo graduated from Garfield High School in 1958; she was Garfield's first Asian American song queen.
Charlette LeFevre is the director of the Bruce Lee Fanclub as well as a co-executive director of the Seattle Museum of the Mysteries at 623 Broadway E. Reach her at editor@capitolhilltimes.com.
