Bruce Lee, the legendary iconic screen actor, who almost exclusively ushered in the Martial Arts movement and was an early template for a kind of an action star which is still utilized in film productions to this day, died 40 years ago today.

Like so many instantly recognizable popularly cultural iconic figures of the 20th Century, the short yet rich filled life of Bruce Lee lives on in memory and urban legend in a way as well. Arguably no other entertainment figure in its broad and voluminous history has had a kind of a global impact that Bruce Lee did and continues to do. In the early 1970s, just as the Asian film market was starting to get a hold on American culture with like minded Martial Arts productions, Lee was extremely instrumental in bringing it to the mainstream table, and to the passionate of the genre an enhancement, of the entire Martial Arts movement and craft.