Bruce Lee co-star Jon Benn on the martial arts legend, his pal O.J. Simpson and the Manson murders
American bit-part actor recalls his role opposite Lee in The Way of the Dragon, explains why he made his Hong Kong restaurant a tribute to the martial arts legend, and tells how he dodged the Sharon Tate murders

ONE NIGHT in 1972, Jon Benn went to a drinks party and met a man called Raymond Chow, who had a film company called Golden Harvest. 'He asked me if I wanted to act with Bruce Lee. I said yes, then I forgot about it but happened to walk past his building later and went in. The part was for the head of the Mafia in Rome - I guess he thought I looked like a bad Italian - and the film was called The Way Of The Dragon.' When Benn is told Bruce Lee practises the ancient art of kung fu, he sneers, with magnificent Roman disdain, 'Kung fu?' which is why he is known as Kung fu-Benn to Lee fans all over the world.
His other famous catchphrase from the film is, 'I get what I want and I want that restaurant,' which was prescient because now he does indeed have a restaurant. It is called The Bruce Lee Cafe in Robinson Road, Mid-Levels, and he opened it in June, just in time for the 25th anniversary of Lee's death (or passing, as it is reverently referred to). Actually, that's not quite true: the restaurant had been in existence for five years under the name The Rickshaw Club.
But when Benn found himself guest of honour at a Bruce Lee convention in London last November, with hundreds of people lining up to get his autograph, at ?10 (HK$120) a time, he had an idea.
'I took down the Shanghai pictures, and I bought the posters and material from Media Asia [who own original film posters and stills], and it was easy.' So we sat in a twilight of film-stills and signed photographs of Chuck Norris and a cabinet of nunchakus - those martial-arts weapons which look like pairs of truncheons - and Benn, who is a quiet American and much less extroverted than you may expect, reminisced about his life. I had the feeling he is a private man who has a few, well-oiled tales which he wheels out for public consumption, and a whole raft of interesting experiences which he keeps hidden unless he's prodded.
For instance, we were talking about the late '60s, when Benn was running pizza parlours and a home-accessory business in California. This was at the height of flower-power, but Benn, who would have been in his early 30s, was evidently no stoned drop-out. 'I'd say I was pretty serious, doing something, making a mark. Because all around me were the hippies. I had a big, eight-bedroomed house in Pacific Heights, big pool - R.J., no, what's his name? O.J., yes, O.J. Simpson, used to come round. Very nice guy.' Very young guy, too, I calculated. Benn, however, was beginning to feel old, losing his hair and turning grey, so he sold up and left. Making idle chit-chat, I wondered if the Manson murders of Roman Polanski's wife, Sharon Tate, and six friends on 9 August 1969 - the night the carefree '60s ceased - had influenced his decision. Benn hesitated and then said, quietly, 'I was supposed to be there. I knew her father, Colonel Tate, in San Francisco. And I knew Jay Sebring. He was the first hairstylist in Hollywood and he used to live in Gary Cooper's old house. I'd been there several times. Sharon's father said, 'Do you want to go down to LA and see Jay?' But I couldn't. I heard Jay was hung from the rafters, Sharon was cut open, and I'd have been much the same.
Everything was happy-go-lucky, but deep down, it was pretty rotten.' Benn came to Hong Kong because he'd been sourcing goods from Asia for his business. He'd lived abroad before, in Mexico in the 1950s, when he set up the country's first English-language radio programme, working with the US Embassy's Information Department.