Bruce Lee’s death: Who was Betty Ting Pei, the rumoured lover whose bed the martial arts legend died on?
Over the past four decades, rumours about the death of martial arts legend Bruce Lee have never abated, even though official autopsy reports at the time concluded it was a tragic case of death by misadventure. The allegations and gossip centre on the fact that Lee’s body was found in the flat of his rumoured girlfriend, Betty Ting Pei – a Taiwanese actress working for the Shaw Brothers’ film studio at the time.
Lee’s death, at the age of just 32, would also shadow Ting’s life for years to come. Numerous unfounded rumours circulated that she was responsible for Lee's death, including the blame that Ting gave him the fatal painkiller, while others alleged that Lee died while making love to her.
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Born in Taiwan in 1947, Ting comes from a family of three generations of doctors and also has eminent historical figures as relatives. Her uncle was Zhang Xueliang, the general of the National Revolutionary Army in the 1920s, while her grandfather was Bao Yulin, the chief police officer of the Beiping Police Bureau during the Warlord Era.
At the age of 20, Ting came to Hong Kong and joined the Shaw Brothers Studio. Her first film in Hong Kong was The Purple Shell (紫貝殼) in 1967, where she acted as a dance hostess. Later, she was a regular in Japanese director Umetsugu Inoue’s films, performing in musicals such as The Millionaire Chase (釣金龜) in 1969 and The Yellow Muffler (玉女嬉春) in 1972. Though the Taiwanese actress starred in various dramas, comedies, musicals and martial arts films, she was best known for her lover roles and her many steamy bedroom scenes.
As Ting recalled in an interview, it was 1972 when she first encountered Lee in a hotel in Hong Kong, along with film producer Raymond Chow Man-wai and Linda Emery, Lee’s wife. Not long after, Lee invited Ting to meet again to discuss Way of the Dragon (猛龍過江) which he was then filming.
“We have something in common, we are both genuine to people. He was a person that never tell lies,” Ting said in an interview. The two quickly became close friends and unsurprisingly, rumours spread about the nature of their relationship.
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Yet sadly the happy times were cut short. On July 20, 1973, Lee was found dead on Ting’s bed. “I know what people were thinking about Bruce and me, and this made me live a nightmare for the past 10 years. I think this is unfair, not only to me, but also to Bruce because he was already dead,” Ting revealed in a TV interview in 1983, a decade after Lee’s death. She denied that Lee died when they were making love on her bed.
According to Ting, Lee and Chow met in her Kowloon Tong flat on that day to discuss the making of the film The Game of Death (死亡遊戲). Lee complained of a headache after Chow left for a dinner meeting and Ting gave him the painkiller Equagesic. Later, Lee asked to lie down for a nap in Ting’s room.
Hours later, Ting says she discovered Lee unconscious. Chow then went back to Ting’s flat, and a doctor was summoned, however, Lee was declared dead upon arrival at Queen Elizabeth Hospital.
It was concluded that Lee died from an allergic reaction to the tranquilliser meprobamate, the main ingredient in Equagesic.
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Since then, some have pointed the finger of blame squarely at Ting for giving Lee the painkiller which caused his death. “I received threats that my life was in danger as revenge for Bruce,” Ting said in an interview. “I was only 26 and was so afraid of death at that time. Nobody came to help me.”
As Ting recalled, Lee was in ill health at that time. Around two months before his death, Lee collapsed while working on Enter the Dragon. “He was not in a state of normal health, but still he practised in an extreme way. He even used high voltage to stimulate and train his muscles, pushing his body to the limit,” Ting said in an interview.
Losing one of her best friends while being blamed by Lee fans for his death, Ting fell to pieces in the years after his death and suffered from schizophrenia.
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When the Shaw Brothers decided to shoot the film Bruce Lee and I (李小龍與我) in 1976 – starring Ting as herself and Danny Lee as Lee – she thought that she had a chance to clarify misconceptions, but it turned out that the film did not truly reflect their relationship.
What the audience paid most attention to was the film’s sex scenes.
In 1976, she married Charles Heung, a Hong Kong actor-turned-film producer, and they had a daughter the following year. Although the marriage only lasted for four years, Ting said Heung saved her life.
After the divorce, Ting retired from showbiz in the early 1980s and instead devoted her time to Buddhism and living a quiet life away from the cameras.
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Bruce Lee died almost half a century ago, but rumours over his mysterious demise remain – as fans mourn the kung fu legend, the life of Taiwanese actress Betty Ting Pei, who was with him that fateful night, has been forever shadowed by his death