Bruce Lee's Offer, Chuck Norris' Decline

0:00On March 21st, here's the latest in entertainment and celebrity news. Enter the Dragon hit theaters in Hong Kong on July 26th, 1973, just six days after Bruce Lee died suddenly at age 32. It became his most famous film and cemented his legendary status. Bruce wanted Chuck Norris to play the villain O'Hara, the bodyguard tied to his character sister's death, but Norris passed on it. The two had already teamed up in the prior year's Way of the Dragon, where Norris's character fought Lee's in a famous Coliseum scene that lasted nearly 10 minutes. Norris lost that brutal match-up and it boosted both their profiles in martial arts cinema. Norris turned down to enter the Dragon role, mainly because he did not want to lose to Lee on screen again. According to Bruce Lee's biography, he aimed to shift to leading hero parts instead of supporting villains. Meanwhile, Norris' career exploded on its own. He starred as the bad guy in 1974's Yellow Face Tiger, but soon grabbed his first lead

1:00in the 1977 Trucker action, Film Breaker. Breaker. Through the 1980s, Norris dominated American action movies, with hits like missing an action in the Delta Force, building a huge fan base, for his tough guy roles that echoed Lee's influence without the rematch.