Steven Frederic Seagal (born April 10, 1952) is an American action film star, producer, writer, martial
artist, guitarist and reserve debuty sheriff. A 7th-dan black belt in Aikido,
Seagal began his adult life as an Aikido instructor in Japan. He became the first foreigner to
operate an Aikido dojo in Japan.
He later moved to the Los
Angeles, California,
area where he made his film debut in 1988 in Above
the Law. By 1991, he starred in three successful films and achieved
greater fame in Under Siege (1992),
where he played Navy SEAL-s counter-terrorist
expert Casey Ryback. However both On Deadly Ground (1994, which he directed)
and Under Siege 2: Dark
Territory (1995) did not do well at the box
office. During the latter half of the
1990s, he starred in three more theatrical films and the direct to video The
Patriot. Since that time, with the exception of Exit Wounds (2001) and Half Past Dead (2002), his career shifted almost
entirely to direct-to-video films (often low budget productions and shot in
Europe or Asia). Between 1998 to 2009, he
appeared in a total of 22 of these. At the age of 59, he returned to the big
screen as Torrez in the 2010 film Machete. In 2011, he filmed the third season
of his reality show Steven Seagal : Lawman.
Seagal is a
guitarist, recording artist, and the founder of Steven Seagal Enterprises. In addition to his professional
achievements, he is also known as an environmentalist, an animal rights activist, a supporter of the 14th
Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso, and the Tibetan independence movement.
Early life
Seagal was
born in Lansing, Michigan,
where he lived until he was five years old, when the family moved to California. His mother,
Patricia (1930–2003), was a medical technician, and his father, Samuel Steven
Seagal (1928–1991), was a high school math teacher. His mother was of Irish
ancestry and his father was Jewish.
In a Russian interview, Seagal once stated that he had a Mongolian
grandfather (either Buryat or Kalmyk). His parents relocated to Fullerton, California,
where Seagal attended Buena Park High School in Buena
Park.
Aikido
At a very
young age, Seagal lied about his age and got a job as a dishwasher at a
restaurant named The
Wagon Wheel. One of the cooks at the restaurant was a Japanese shotokan
karate expert
and noticed Seagal moved very quickly around the kitchen. He taught Seagal the
basics of karate. Seagal began training in aikido under master Harry Kiyoshi
Ishisaka, founder of the Orange
County Aikido
School (Orange County
Aiki Kai) (OCAK) in 1964. Seagal considers him to have been the most important
martial arts teacher in his life. Seagal moved to Japan in his late teens after
he went to Japan with his
father who was visiting for military purposes and met karate masters and
decided to remain in Japan.
He received his 1st dan degree (Shodan) under the direction of
Koichi Tohei. He continued to train in aikido as a student of Seiseki Abe,
Koichi Tohei (whose
aikido organization,Ki Society, Seagal refused to join in favor of staying with
the Aikikai),Kisaburo Osawa, Hiroshi Isoyama and the second doshu Kisshomaru Ueshiba. He
attained a 7th dan degree
and Shihan in aikido and became the first foreigner to operate an aikido dojo in Japan. Seagal
claims to have been subject to xenophobia in Japan and visited by many Japanese
coming to try to kill him, resenting his teaching the Japanese.
When
Seagal's father-in-law retired from his job as an instructor, Seagal became the
new head of the organization known as Tenshin Aikido inJūsō, Osaka City
(affiliated with the Aikikai). Seagal is known by his students as Take Sensei. When Seagal left
his dojo in Osaka,
his then-wife Miyako became the caretaker of the dojo which has continued to
the present day. Seagal initially returned to Taos, New Mexico, with his student (and later film
stuntman) Craig Dunn, where they opened a dojo, although Seagal spent much of his time
pursuing other ventures. After another period in Japan,
Seagal returned to the U.S.
in 1983 with senior student Haruo Matsuoka. They opened an aikido dojo,
initially in North Hollywood, California,
but later moved it to the city of West
Hollywood. Seagal left Matsuoka in charge of the dojo,
which he ran until the two parted ways in 1997.
Seagal initially worked as the martial arts
coordinator for the films The Challenge (1982)
starring Scott Glenn and Toshiro
Mifune, and Never Say Never Again (1983)
starring Sean Connery and A View to a
Kill starring Roger Moore.
He has helped train Brazilian mixer martial artists Anderson
Silva and
Lyoto Machida. Silva,
who is the former UFC Middleweight Champion, went on to knock out Vitor Belfort, with a
kick, in their fight at UFC 126 in February 2011, and Machida also credited
him for helping him perfect the crane kick that he used to knock out Randy
Couture at UFC 129 in May 2011.
