Steven Seagal was born on April 10, 1952. In his teenage years, he moved to Japan, where he studied the martial art of Aikido and eventually became the first non-Japanese person to run a dojo. Later, Seagal would take his dojo back to the United States, where he set up shop in Los Angeles. Seagal's Aikido prominence caught the eye of film producers, and soon he was called in as a martial arts coordinator for Hollywood, including several James Bond films.

Seagal's career took a dramatic turn in the late eighties when a former Aikido student, the producer Micheal Ortiz, asked him to try acting. Ortiz believed he could make anyone into a star, and thus was born 1987's Above the Law, and Seagal's acting career.

Watching his films, it is easy to see the effects of Seagal’s martial arts background – and his complete lack of acting experience. The fight scenes are well-executed, but the cheesy one-liners – that other staple of the action blockbuster – are delivered with all the panache of ordering dinner. Fitting, then, that Seagal’s most iconic character is Navy Seal-turned-galley-cook Casey Ryback, star of 1992’s Under Siege and 1995’s Under Siege 2. Seagal’s portrayal of the nigh-invincible Navy SEAL drew comparisons to other early-nineties action heroes, such as Riggs of the Lethal Weapon films and John McClane of Die Hard. Ryback was never as memorable as those characters, however, so while Bruce Willis and Mel Gibson parlayed their action-hero experience into highly-successful Hollywood careers, Seagal languished into relative straight-to-video obscurity.

However, for a brief time in the early nineties, Seagal’s career, like his onscreen alter-ego, seemed nearly invincible. Celebrate that shining period with the Navy SEAL cocktail while watching  Under Siege.