Bruce Lee Had A Small Role In This Little Remembered '60s Western Series

Bruce Lee was born on November 27, 1940, and, if the actor's IMDb is to be trusted, his first film role was in a 1941 film titled "Golden Gate Girl." He was only a baby. Lee, however, remained in front of the camera throughout his youth, appearing in movies throughout the '40s and into the '50s. American audiences wouldn't really take note of Lee until he landed the role of Kato, the sidekick of the eponymous hero in the 1966 TV series "The Green Hornet". Lee also played Kato in a crossover episode with "Batman," which was a massive hit at the time. 

Playing Kato was enough to get Hollywood's attention, and Lee soon began appearing in other hit shows like "Ironside" and "Blondie." It wouldn't be until 1971 that Lee would return to martial arts pictures with hits like "The Big Boss" and "Fist of Fury." As many know, Lee died in 1973 at the age of 32, so his biggest hit, "Enter the Dragon," was released posthumously. Lee was prolific and popular despite his short life, and he is admired to this day for his screen presence and martial arts acumen.

According to Lee's IMDb trivia page, he only ever played a single dramatic, English-language role in which he didn't play a martial artist or fighter of any kind. That role was Lin in the 1968 sitcom "Here Come the Brides." Not many people remember "Here Come the Brides," which ran for only 52 episodes over its two seasons, although some will know it starred heartthrobs like David Soul and Bobby Sherman. Bruce Lee is actually more famous than this Western sitcom. He starred in the 1969 episode "Marriage, Chinese Style." 

The premise of "Here Come the Brides" was actually loosely based on the real historical figure Asa Mercer, who, in the 1860s, traveled from his home in Washington State to the East Coast to find marriageable women for his town of Seattle. Seattle was mostly made up of men, you see, and they all longed for wives. "Here Come the Brides" follows a similar character, Jason Bolt (Robert Brown), and his two brothers, Jeremy (Bobby Sherman) and Joshua (the late David Soul), as they travel to Massachusetts to pick up some women for the lumberjacks working in their sawmill to marry. The women move to Seattle and are cared for by Lottie (Joan Blondell), the local saloon owner. Aaron Stempel (Mark Lenard) was the show's antagonist, and he tried to sabotage the Bolts' plans to take control of their business. 

The plot of "Marriage, Chinese Style" sounds pretty simple. Jeremy, while in Tacoma, rescues a Chinese woman named Toy Quan (Linda Dangcil) from a tense situation. Toy Quan was in town to meet her betrothed husband, Lin (Bruce Lee), but became romantically attached to Jeremy after the rescue, and now declared that she had to marry him. This, it turns out, was fine by Lin, who also didn't want to go through with the estranged marriage. Sadly, the rules of honor dictated that he had to hunt Jeremy down and challenge him to a fight. In a rare twist for Bruce Lee, he actually spends the bulk of his screen time trying to avoid fighting and even seems openly cowardly on the matter. 

"Here Comes the Brides" is also the only time you'll see Bruce Lee on horseback, or anywhere near the Western genre. He only did a few more American projects before his big martial arts hits.