THE BRIEF LIFE AND UNNECESSARY DEATH OF BRANDON LEE (3)

Arriving in Wilmington in January, Lee first rented a house on Figure Eight Island and then moved to Carolina Beach, which was closer to the set and enabled him to travel without a chauffeur. As filming began, he did his best to accommodate himself to the long nights and sound-asleep days of The Crow's schedule. "In the past few months, I've been realizing that I'd like to see the sun for once," he complained late in the shooting, adding wistfully, "I haven't done anything here except make the movie."

When Lee did have free time, he would sometimes drop by The Mint Julep, a downtown hangout favored by the film's crew and extras, who would often show up still in costume as menacing motorcycle thugs; there, he would shoot a game or two of pool, keeping to himself. Lee also spent a good deal of time at the health club, where he would indulge his delight in macabre humor for a small but impressed audience. "He came in one morning," says owner Davis, "with a bloodstain on him, and he said, 'Oh, look, I've been shot!' He held up his shirt and said, 'I can't get this stuff off my stomach!' They'd put dye on it or something." On another day, Lee came in still wearing the latex scars that The Crow's makeup men had glued to his torso and arms. "He worked out all that night," says Davis, "and all the stuff fell off onto my floor. To help him, we had to pick up his scars."

Lee also spent time with J.K. Loftin, a local musician and teacher who helped the actor prepare for a couple of scenes in which he had to play the guitar. "He was always wearing black jeans and a black T-shirt, and he had this guitar - actually kind of a cheap guitar - that they got him," says Loftin. "I gave him three months' worth of lessons in two weeks, and he sucked it up. He was just so sharp. He was very aware of where he came from - how could you not be? - but he was really a regular guy."

Loftin and his wife, Cathy, became friendly with Lee and Hutton, who told them of their plans for a large and festive wedding in Ensenada, Mexico: They wanted to charter a bus, take 45 of their friends over the border, and marry on a walkway to the beach. "They'd rented an entire hotel in Baja California," says Loftin. "They were very sweet together. But she was handling most of the day-to-day preparations so he could work."

In fact, Lee was devoting most of his energy to the role he felt would be his professional breakthrough, and was evidently touched by The Crow's themes of loss and resurrection. "It's a great part," he said a few weeks before his death. "My girlfriend keeps telling me that (my character) Eric is the symbol of a man who can come back and get justice for all the people who never got it. I don't know - that sounds a little heavy to me - but in a way I guess it's true. Eric and (his girlfriend) Shelly were engaged, and at a crucial moment, it was taken away. There are wonderful people everywhere who have awful things ! happen to them, who are never given a chance to do anything about it."

Two days after Brandon Lee died, director Proyas and producers Rosen and Pressman met with the crew of The Crow and told them that any decision on whether the film could or should be completed would take at least a month. Some actors had already left Wilmington, and Massee, who fired the pistol, was said to be devastated and in seclusion. "We've had nothing but support from the insurance company and the completion-bond people (who serve as on-set monitors of a film's expenditures and budget)," Rosen told the assembled group. "It is our hope that if the film can be completed," said Pressman, "it is done in a way that Brandon would be proud (of)."

But according to some reports, within days of Lee's death, there were already plans afoot to refashion The Crow's remaining scenes so that Lee's role could be shot around or cast with a double. That apparent urgency testifies to a long history of bottom-line decisions about the completion of movies whose stars die suddenly; when at all possible, the movie is finished by any means necessary. (The most recent major example, MGM's 1983 thriller Brainstorm, was extensively restructured after one of its stars, Natalie Wood, drowned three weeks before the end of shooting.) The Crow, however, may face another hurdle; Paramount, which planned to release the film on Aug. 20, has an out clause that allows it to reject the movie if it is not completed to the studio's standards, a tactic some Paramount sources say the studio may use to avoid the appearance of ghoulishness or eagerness to capitalize on a tragedy.

On April 3, as screenwriters reportedly began work retooling The Crow, Brandon Lee was buried next to his father in Seattle. The next day, 200 relatives, friends, and colleagues gathered at the Los Angeles home of actress Polly Bergen for a memorial. Among those in attendance were Lee's mother, his sister Shannon, Eliza Hutton, Kiefer Sutherland, Lou Diamond Phillips, David Hasselhoff, and Steven Seagal. The nondenominational service lasted a little over an hour. As the guests left, each one carried a glossy photograph of Lee. According to the limousine driver who escorted Hutton to the service, she was "kind of like somewhere else - she's not here. She's lost. She doesn't believe it yet."

Most of The Crow's cast and crew have left Wilmington after a harsh and embittering spring. Before she returned to Los Angeles, though, Eliza Hutton took the time to telephone Loftin and offer him the guitar he had taught Lee to play. Loftin decided to accept the memento, but not before wrestling with his emotions. "At first I thought that'd be really great to have. But then, I didn't know if I wanted something like that around to remind me of this. Something that should have been," he says, "and never will be."

Entertainment Weekly, 04-16-1993