Biography.guide
Home › People › Opera singer › Lee Hoi-chuen
Portrait of Lee Hoi-chuen

Lee Hoi-chuen

1901 – 1965

Father of Bruce Lee

Don't just read it — keep itBiographies to ownE-book · Audio · Video From $7 →

About Lee Hoi-chuen

Lived 1901 – 1965 (aged 64). Lee Hoi-chuen was a Chinese opera singer and actor.

Lee Moon-shuen (; 4 February 1901 – 7 February 1965), known professionally as Lee Hoi-chuen , was a Chinese opera singer and film actor in Hong Kong. He was the father of Bruce Lee, the father-in-law of Linda Lee Cadwell, and the paternal grandfather of Brandon Lee and Shannon Lee.

Family Lee was born on 4 February 1901, in Jun'an, Guangdong, in the waning years of the Qing Dynasty. He moved to Hong Kong, then a British colony, and became a Cantonese opera actor. There, he met and married Grace Ho (1907–1996), a Chinese Eurasian and a daughter of Ho Kom-tong. They had two daughters, Phoebe and Agnes, and three sons, Peter, Bruce and Robert.

Lee and his wife were on a one-year US tour with the Cantonese Opera Company in 1940 when their second son Bruce Lee was born in San Francisco. They later returned to Hong Kong when Bruce Lee was three months old. Soon after, the Lee family led an unexpected four-year hard life as Japan, in the midst of World War II, launched a surprise attack of Hong Kong in December 1941 and ruled for four years. Bruce later fathered Brandon Lee.

Their youngest son Robert Lee, who was born in 1948, would go on to become famous in Hong Kong during the 1960s as the lead singer and founder of a popular beat band, The Thunderbirds.

Lee died of a heart attack in Hong Kong on 7 February 1965, aged 64. He was buried at St Raphael's Catholic Cemetery at Cheung Sha Wan in Kowloon.

In popular culture Lee Hoi-chuen was portrayed by Ric Young in the 1993 film Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story and by Tony Leung Ka-fai in the 2010 film Bruce Lee, My Brother.

Biography shop

Don’t just read it —
keep it.

Full-length biographies made to live with: read them, listen on the way to work, watch them tonight.

  • E-book
  • Audio
  • Video
Browse the shop — from $7

Instant download · yours to keep · every purchase keeps this site free

Important facts

Birth century
Occupation
Also known as
Li Haiquan, Lee Moon-shuen

Family & relationships

Spouse
Grace Ho
Child
Bruce Lee
Child
Peter Lee Jung-sum
Child
Robert Lee Jun-fai

People in Lee Hoi-chuen's life

Named in this biography and alive at the same time

Contemporaries

People whose lives overlapped Lee Hoi-chuen's

Frequently asked questions

Who was Lee Hoi-chuen?

father of Bruce Lee (1901–1965)

When was Lee Hoi-chuen born?

Lee Hoi-chuen was born on 4 February 1901 in Jun'an Town.

When did Lee Hoi-chuen die?

Lee Hoi-chuen died on 7 February 1965 in British Hong Kong.

What was Lee Hoi-chuen's occupation?

Lee Hoi-chuen was an opera singer and actor.

What nationality was Lee Hoi-chuen?

Lee Hoi-chuen was Chinese.

Sources & further reading

· Wikipedia: Lee Hoi-chuen

· Wikidata: Q712093

· DBpedia: Lee Hoi-chuen

Cite this page

APA: Biography.guide. (2026). Lee Hoi-chuen. https://biography.guide/lee-hoi-chuen/

MLA: "Lee Hoi-chuen." Biography.guide, https://biography.guide/lee-hoi-chuen/.

Chicago: "Lee Hoi-chuen." Biography.guide. https://biography.guide/lee-hoi-chuen/.

Data last updated: 2026-09-22 · Spot an error? Report a correction.

Page generated 2026-09-27 05:19 UTC