Steven Seagal Background and Career

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Steven Seagal was born in Lansing, Michigan to a Jewish father and an Irish Catholic mother. In his youth, he relocated to Fullerton, California and began studying the martial arts under the direction of renowned shito-ryu karate master Fumio Demura and aikido under Rod Kobayashi the President of the Western States Aikido Federation.

In his late teens, Seagal became part of Demura’s Karate Demonstration Team and performed daily demonstrations in Japanese Deer Park, an amusement park in Southern California. In 1974 he was promoted by Kobayashi Sensei to Shodan in Shin Shin Toitsu Aikido.

It was also about this time that he met Miyako Fujitani at a seminar in southern California and the two were later married. Fujitani’s mother owned an aikido dojo, the Tenshin Dojo in Osaka.

Segal moved to Japan and changed affiliation from Koichi Tohei’s Ki Society and Shin Shin Toitsu Aikdo to the Hombu Aikikai and was promoted from Shodan (1st degree) to Yondan (4th degree).

Upon his return to the United States, Seagal opened the Tenshin Bugei Gakuen in 1982, after the Dojo where he trained in Japan.

Seagal’s first venture into the film industry occurred when he was hired as the stunt co-ordinator for the 1982 film The Challenge, starring Toshiro Mifune. In 1983, Seagal returned to the United States, a decade after he left, in order to pursue a career in the film industry.

In 1984, he married his second wife, former Days of Our Lives actress Adrienne La Russa, even though the divorce to his first wife had not been finalized. His third marriage was to actress Kelly LeBrock, whom he first met when he was hired to be her bodyguard.

Seagal’s acting career took off when, by chance, Michael Ovitz, the then president of one of the most powerful talent agencies in Hollywood, Creative Artists Agency (CAA), came to Seagal’s Aikido Studio in Burbank, California and became his student. Following this, Seagal’s acting career rapidly took off and he became known for his roles in martial arts oriented action movies.

Seagal has produced many of the movies that he stars in, and has also participated in writing and direction. Seagal’s roles do not fit the standard action hero archetype. The characters he portrays are often ‘born perfect,’ displaying no limitations, character flaws, or character development.

Instead, his roles are often associated with attributes given to action movie antagonists or villains; eg. clandestine government associations (Under Siege), great wealth and high-level corporate ties (On Deadly Ground), high-level biochemical research skill (The Patriot), etc.

Though Seagal has had numerous big screen successes, most notably Under Siege (1992), many of recent films have gone straight to cable television and video release, although he continues to star in several films each year. In this period, he has appeared in a well received Mountain Dew commercial in the US, in which he parodied his tough-guy persona.

Seagal has also recently recorded a blues album, Songs from the Crystal Cave released by Sony in 2005 and features Tony Rebel, Lt. Stichie, Lady Saw and Stevie Wonder.

Seagal maintains a ranch in Colorado and a home in the Mandeville Canyon section of Brentwood, California, a wealthy suburb of Los Angeles.