In this 1964 tape, a confident Bruce Lee gives a kung fu primer while auditioning for the role of Kato in The Green Hornet. Lee, of course, got the part, and though the show only ran for a year, Kato, the ass-kicking man-servant was a ground-breaking, if complicated, moment in television history. By this time Lee had already built a successful film career in Hong Kong—though he was born Chinatown, San Francisco, his parents moved to Hong Kong when he was three. Lee’s Cantonese birth name was actually Lee Jun-fan, meaning “return again,” named for his (half-white) mother’s prediction that he would one day come back to the US.

The martial arts demos are cool, but for me, one of the more interesting moments is when Lee show some of the gaits of Chinese Opera—his own father was a Chinese opera and film star. In addition to the fighting skills that earned him the (unofficial) title of America’s first male Asian sex symbol, Lee was a man of many graceful talents—he was even the 1958 Honk Kong Cha Cha Champion!
 

 
Via Open Culture, H/T Brain Pickings