Steven Seagal's Real Name: Steven Seagal

Quick answer: Steven Seagal is known professionally as Steven Seagal. Contemporary Theatre, Film and Television, via Encyclopedia.com, lists the heading form Seagal, Steven and notes a disputed birth year (Encyclopedia.com). He is an American actor and martial artist who became a film lead in Above the Law (1988) after teaching aikido in Japan and in Los Angeles (Los Angeles Times).

Real name and early life

The Library of Congress heading is "Seagal, Steven," without dates. Encyclopedia.com gives a birth date of April 10, 1952, in Lansing, Michigan, but adds that some sources cite 1950 or 1951, and says he was raised in Lansing and in Fullerton, California. A February 14, 1988, Los Angeles Times profile described him as 37, a figure that would align more closely with a 1950 birth year than with 1952. Because the year is genuinely disputed, this page does not treat a single year as settled and does not place a date in the title. Spellings such as Segal and Seagel appear as credit variants in library and reference records; the established professional spelling is Seagal.

Career highlights

The 1988 Times profile reported that Seagal had lived in Japan, where he taught aikido, and that a year before the article he had been running Aikido Ten Shin Dojo in West Hollywood, where he still taught. It previewed his first film, Warner Bros.' Above the Law, then due on April 8, 1988, in which he played a Chicago detective. The paper described him as a newcomer who had not been in front of a camera before the previous spring. This page does not treat other overseas claims recounted in that profile as established fact.

Encyclopedia.com lists the subsequent early-1990s films Hard to Kill, Marked for Death, Out for Justice, and Under Siege (1992), in which he played Casey Ryback, a role he repeated in Under Siege 2: Dark Territory (1995). Later 1990s credits in that filmography include On Deadly Ground (1994), which it also lists among his directing work, Executive Decision, The Glimmer Man, and Fire Down Below, followed by Exit Wounds (2001). Credits sometimes spell the surname differently; the professional spelling remains Seagal.

Name notes for searchers

Steven Seagal is the established professional name. Library records list several spelling variants. Searchers looking for the star of Above the Law or Under Siege are usually aiming at the same person.