A letter from Bruce Lee to costar Robert Baker — which appears to reference drug use and includes the line “I hope you will send me the 'quality' stuff" — will be up for bid at RR Auction next month.
Baker is best known as the villain from Lee's 1972 film “Fist of Fury,” but the recent discovery of a batch of letters between the two revealed their relationship extended beyond the screen.
In 2021, a collection of dozens of previously never-before-seen letters from Lee first illuminated the actor's alleged drug use. It sold at Heritage for a combined $462,500.
Among the more bombastic revelations from the letters were notes between Lee and friends describing his need for drugs such as cocaine — “Some coke would help in the formation of what I want to create,” Lee wrote in a 1972 letter to Baker — as well as efforts to back off his drug use: “excessive indulgence of [drugs] just isn’t in my road in Jeet Kune Do,” Lee’s personal life philosophy.
The letter at RR holds a pre-sale estimate of $15,000 and includes further references to alleged drug use and the apparent relationship between the two actors, noting the drugs were never “from the street."
Lee died in 1973 at the age of 32, just a year after the release of “Fist of Fury.”
After collapsing during the filming of “Enter the Dragon” while experiencing seizures and headaches, doctors diagnosed the martial arts star with cerebral edema, an accumulation of fluid in the brain. He died soon after.
Will Stern is a reporter and editor for cllct.