Steven Seagal

Seagal was born on April 10, 1952, in Lansing, Michigan, the son of Patricia Anne Fisher, a medical technician, and Samuel Seagal, a mathematics teacher. His mother was of Irish descent, while his father was Jewish. His paternal grandparents were Russian Jewish immigrants. During an interview for the Russian talk show Let Them Talk, Seagal stated that he has paternal ancestors from the Siberian city of Vladivostok, as well as Belarus and Saint Petersburg. He said that genetic testing determined that he has Yakut and Buryat ancestry as well. When he was 5, Seagal moved with his parents to Fullerton, California. His mother later told People magazine that prior to the move Seagal was frail and suffered from asthma: "He was a puny kid back then. But he really thrived after the move [from Michigan]."

Seagal attended Buena Park High School in Buena Park, California, and Fullerton College between 1970 and 1971. Seagal has been described as a “pathological liar” due to his propensity of making greatly exaggerated or outright fabricated statements about his personal life and achievements. For instance, Seagal has claimed that he was a student of the founder of aikido, Morihei Ueshiba; despite the fact that Ueshiba died in 1969 when Seagal was 17 and five years before Seagal moved to Japan at age 22 — when he moved there to allegedly avoid the draft for the Vietnam War by marrying a Japanese national.