Almost everything you've ever bothered to read about Steven Seagal is a lie. It is true that he has starred in five motion pictures, and it's also true that he has a black belt in aikido. Apart from those facts, there is little you can count on.
Seagal has often bragged that he was the first and only Occidental to own and run a dojo in Japan. In fact, the dojo, which was founded by Fujitani's (his wife) father, a noted aikido black belt, was owned by his mother-in-law and managed by his wife, herself a black belt. Seagal has also boasted of his courage in battling criminals. Sometimes the thugs are members of the Yakuza, the Japanese Mafia; other times, they are mere garden-variety criminals. "I jumped right in their faces," Seagal told Movieline. "I was a tenacious guy, man, and I was fearless."
"It is a lie," Fujitani told Spy. "He once chased a few drunks away from the dojo but never was involved with Yakuza." She also has some insight into Seagal's distinction as the first Occidental to receive an aikido black belt. "The only reason Steven was awarded the black belt was because the judge, who was famous for his laziness, fell asleep during Steven's presentation," she says. "The judge just gave him the black belt." And while Seagal has since risen to the sixth level of black belt, martial-arts buffs scoff at his prowess because he has never competed.
According to Mark Mikita, the actor specializes in taking bits of other people's experiences and claiming them as his own. On one occasion, one of Seagal's students, a former Green Beret, was talking about his time in Laos. Later Seagal told the same story to another group, only now he had become the protagonist.
Once Seagal became famous, it was essential that he maintain his mysterious facade. In early 1988 he was collaborating on a screenplay with two writers, Temmak Kramer and the aforementioned Goldman, who describes himself as "an unconventional-warfare and intelligence specialist." During a Los Angeles Times interview at the time, Seagal once again floated a vague tale of his association with the CIA. Perhaps the reporter, Patrick Goldstein, was skeptical, because Seagal took the further step of persuading Goldman to back up his tale. "I know this much," Goldman told the Times. "I've been out with Steven on several missions, and he knows how to get things done. He has a certain high level of skill that you don't just pick up reading fantasy magazines. I don't think anyone would question his capabilities." Goldman then carefully added, "I think it would be fair to say that at some point in time Uncle Sam recruited Steven Seagal because they thought he had particular talents that would prove useful on certain assignments."
The following year, Seagal and Goldman had their argument about money. This prompted Goldman to send a letter to Goldstein recanting everything he had said about Seagal's CIA background. Spy has obtained a copy of that letter, dated August 18, 1989. "Please accept this written apology for any deception, stated or implied, that I may have conveyed," Goldman wrote. "The plain truth of the matter is that Seagal was and is a gutless coward who is trying to convert the heroic deeds of those brave men into a personal history for himself."
Late in 1988, a former soldier of fortune and treasure hunter named Randy Widner invited Seagal, Goldman and another man to hunt for treasure off the coast of Barbados. At that time, Seagal had been telling Goldman that he'd been a U.S. Navy SEAL. Evidently this was one frogman who did not take well to water. As Goldman recalls, "Randy was driving [a Zodiac raft] in circles while Steven and I carried the gear out to him. The surf was unbelievable, really tough... He started screaming and panicking and was sure he was going to die and all that crap." Goldman says Seagal had to be helped onto the vessel. "Wildner had to pull Seagal by his hair; I pushed his ass onto the boat with my shoulder." Later that evening, Goldman says, he realized that Seagal could not read a compass or a map. (Seagal describes himself as "autistic with numbers.") With that, Goldman says, he totally dismissed the notion that Seagal had ever been involved in any covert operations. In his letter to the Times reporter, Goldman wrote that Seagal "would surely die of starvation if he was given a compass and a map that led to a restaurant five miles away."
