Bruce Lee’s first starring role in a movie came when he was just 10 years old.
One of the interesting facts about Bruce Lee is that Bruce Lee's first main role in a movie was when he was 10 years old. Famous Cantonese opera performer Lee Hoi-Chuen is Lee's father. Lee was consequently exposed to the world of film at a very young age and made multiple child appearances in movies. In the film Golden Gate Girl, Lee played a newborn being carried on stage in her very first acting job. He would co-star with his father in The Kid, a 1950 film based on a comic book character when he was 10 years old. This was his first major role.
Based on a manga of the day, a young Bruce Lee played Kid Cheung, a street orphan, and cunning troublemaker, in the 1950 film The Kid. His father, Lee Hoi-Chuen, who is also a well-known opera singer, co-stars with Lee in the film as a good-hearted factory owner. (Lee would relocate back to the US in 1959; he was actually born in San Francisco while his father was there on tour.)
The movie was successful enough in China, according to Lee's biographer Matthew Polly, to warrant consideration for a follow-up. There was just one issue: because young Bruce Lee was fighting in the street and at school, his father barred him from acting again until he got his act together, which of course didn't happen.
