On March 31, 1993, while making
The Crow, the crew filmed a scene in which Lee's character walked into his apartment and discovered his girlfriend being
raped by thugs. Actor
Michael Massee, who played one of the film's villains (Fun-boy), was supposed to fire a gun at Eric Draven (Brandon Lee) as he walked into his apartment.
Because the movie's
second unit team was running behind schedule, it was decided that dummy cartridges (
cartridges that outwardly appear to be functional but contain no
gunpowder or
primer) would be made from real cartridges by pulling out the bullet, dumping out the gunpowder and reinserting the bullet. However, the team neglected to consider that the primer was still live and, if fired, could still produce enough force to push the bullet off the end of the cartridge. At some point prior to the fatal scene, the live primer on one of the constructed dummy rounds was discharged by persons unknown while in the pistol's chamber. It caused a
squib load, in which the primer provided just enough force to push the bullet out of the cartridge and into the barrel of the revolver, where it became stuck.
The
malfunction went unnoticed by the crew, and the same gun was used again later to shoot the death scene, having been re-loaded with low-power
black powder blanks. However, the squib load was still lodged in the barrel, and was propelled by the blank cartridge's explosion out of the barrel and into Lee's body. Although the bullet was traveling much slower than a normally fired bullet would be, the bullet's large size and the point-blank firing distance made it powerful enough to fatally wound Lee.
When the blank was fired, the bullet shot out and hit Lee in the abdomen and lodged in his spine. He fell down instantly and the director shouted "
Cut!." When Lee did not respond, the cast and crew rushed to him and found that he was wounded. He was immediately rushed to the hospital. Lee’s heart stopped once on the set and once in the ambulance. Following a six hour operation to remove the bullet, and despite being given 60 pints of blood, Lee was pronounced dead at 1:03 pm on March 31, 1993. He was 28 years old.
Brandon's body was flown to Jacksonville, North Carolina, where an autopsy was performed. He was then flown to Seattle, Washington, where he was buried next to his father at Lake View cemetery, a cemetery plot that Linda Lee Cadwell had originally reserved for herself.
The private funeral took place in Seattle, Washington, on April 3, 1993. Only close family and friends were permitted to attend, including Brandon's immediate family as well as Eliza's parents and younger sister, who flew in from Missouri. The following day, 250 of Brandon's family, friends and business associates attended a memorial service in Los Angeles, held at the house of actress Polly Bergen, with whom Lee had regularly played backgammon.
The gravestone, designed by North Snohomish County sculptor Kirk McLean, is a tribute to Brandon and Eliza's young love. Its two twisting rectangles of charcoal granite join at the bottom and pull apart at the top. "It represents Eliza and Brandon, the two of them, and how the tragedy of his death separated their mortal life together," said his mother, Linda Lee Cadwell, who described son, like father, as a poetic and romantic person.
The shooting was ruled an accident. The theory of the Lee "family curse" was also carried over from Bruce Lee's death to Brandon's; he had died almost 20 years after his father and before the release of the film which could have been his breakthrough to stardom.
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