Is Katey Sagal Related To Steven Seagal?

Are Katey Sagal and Steven Sagal related?

Introduction

The world of Hollywood is one paved with intrigue, mystery, glitz, glamour, fun, and excitement.

We love learning more about what our favorite Hollywood actors and celebrities are up to, and we love learning new facts about them.

While there are all kinds of fun and interesting facts about Hollywood actors guaranteed to blow our minds, the trouble with life in the limelight is that not everything you hear or read about a celebrity is true.

Steven Seagal, for example, was one of the hottest action stars of the 1990s, and while today he is often mocked and ridiculed, he’s still relevant, which is why there are so many rumors about him.

One common rumor is that he’s related to actress and singer-songwriter Katey Sagal, but what’s the truth?

Is Katey Sagal related to Steven Seagal? Let’s find out, shall we?

Who is Katey Sagal?

If you don’t recognize Katey Sagal from such hits as ‘Married… with Children’ and ‘Sons of Anarchy,’ there’s a very strong chance that you recognize her voice from the hit animated sci-fi series ‘Futurama.’

Katey was born on January 19, 1954, in Los Angeles, California.

Performing was in her blood as she was born into a show business family.

Her mother was a TV writer and producer, and her father was a TV director.

Sagal began her career in the 1970s as a backing singer for big name artists, including Bob Dylan and Tanya Tucker.

Thanks to her father, she landed her first TV role as a receptionist on ‘Columbo’ in the 1980s.

In 1987, she played Peggy Bundy on the sitcom Married… with Children, where she remained for 10 years.

She would land numerous other smaller roles on hit TV shows, including ‘That 70s Show.’

She was then cast as the voice of Leela on Matt Groening’s Futurama.

Perhaps her most popular role was as Gemma Teller-Morrow, on the FX show Sons of Anarchy. The show was renowned for its gritty and violent nature as it centered around an outlaw biker gang in the factional setting of Charming, CA, who ran guns for local gangs.

The character of Gemma was very polarizing and was Sagal’s most extreme role to date.

Gemma was the matriarch of the Sons, as she was married to the leader of the gang, was the ex-wife of the gang’s founding member, and was the mother to the gang’s vice president.

Critics and audiences were hugely impressed with her performance, so much so, in fact, that she won a Golden Globe Award in 2011 for Best Actress Performance.

Sagal is currently married to Kurt Sutter, who created Sons of Anarchy, as well as co-created the multi-award-winning drama The Shield.

Sara Macon and a USO stage

Her mother, Sara Zwilling, sang under stage name Sara Macon and wrote for television. She died suddenly in 1975, aged 47, which left Katey, still a young woman, to help raise four younger siblings.

On Fresh Air, Katey went back to her mother’s first stage: “My mother had been a singer in the USO shows, she had a radio show when she was a kid.”

Before television, Katey sang in The Harlettes, Bette Midler’s backup group, and she describes Midler as a tough teacher: “I dropped out of college, so she was like a college education for me”.

Twins, brothers and a stepmother

Boris and Sara had five children, with Katey as eldest.

The other four are sons Joey and David and identical twins Jean and Liz. Jean later directed episodes of 2 Broke Girls and Two and a Half Men. Liz wrote for Mad About You. David is an attorney who married actress McNally Sagal in 1988, and Joey met Elvis Presley at age seven on set of his father’s 1965 film Girl Happy (same People report).

In 1977 Boris married dancer Marge Champion, and her sons Gregg and Blake Champion became Katey’s stepbrothers.

Katey met Elvis as a child as well, and her verdict is very funny in hindsight: “I was so not impressed. Now I would be.”

TLC dug into it in 2016

In April 2016 Katey appeared in an episode of TLC’s genealogy series Who Do You Think You Are? Producers followed her mother’s USO years in New York and a line of ancestors that led to Amish settlers in Pennsylvania.

Who is Steven Seagal?

Steven Frederic Seagal is an American actor and martial artist who was one of the hottest action movie stars of the 1990s.

Seagal has featured in numerous Hollywood hits over the years, and while his movies today are, questionable, to say the least, he still remains active.

He was born on the 10th of April 1952.

He studied martial arts in Japan from a young age.

In 1987, Seagal landed his first movie role in ‘Above the Law’ also known as ‘Nico’ in Europe.

His biggest role, by far, came in 1992 when he played former Navy SEAL turned cook Casey Ryback in the Hollywood blockbuster ‘Under Siege.’

Seagal would go on to star in a sequel ‘Under Siege 2: Dark Territory’ as well as in ‘Marked for Death’ and ‘Out for Justice’ and Hard to Kill.’ He would also direct and star in ‘On Deadly Ground’ alongside Michael Caine.

After the 1990s, Seagal’s acting career took a nosedive, as did his popularity.

Seagal had a reputation for being notoriously difficult to work with on set.

He refused to ever let any of his characters show any weaknesses, he insisted on being the best at everything he did, and he was reported to have greatly overexaggerated his fighting skills and abilities, and would allegedly lie compulsively.

As he grew older, he would gain weight and would also become a figment of fun online.

In the mid-late 2010s, Seagal wrote, directed, and starred in a bunch of straight-to-DVD movies, portraying the characters that he was playing as highly skilled tough guys, special forces soldiers, warriors, and more besides, despite the fact that he was greatly overweight and was closing in at 70 at the time.

Many, the cast included, consider him to be the worst Saturday Night Live host ever. He hosted the show once in 1991, was allegedly rude to the cast, and refused to take part in a sketch because the characters had stated they could ‘beat him up.

Despite his reputation, Seagal has plenty of fans, and you can’t deny that Under Siege is one of the best Hollywood action blockbusters to come out of the 1990s.

READ MORE: Who is Darlene Gayman Jennings–the wife of Gino Jennings?

So, is Katey Sagal related to Steven Seagal?

As you can see from the spelling of the last name, ‘Sagal’ and ‘Seagal’ are spelled differently. Despite this, because of the similarities, this did lead to rumors that Katey Sagal was related to Steven Seagal in some way, but is that true?

Despite some claiming they were married, others claiming they were brother and sister, or even cousins, there is NO truth to the rumors that the two are, or were, ever related.

Steven Seagal and Katey Sagal are not related to each other and have no relationship, professional, personal, or otherwise, with one another. They just have a common surname.

Dictionary of American Family Names (2nd edition, Oxford University Press, 2022) lists Sagal as a Jewish Ashkenazic variant of Segal, an acronym from the Hebrew phrase SeGan Levia, “assistant Levite”. Seagal began in America as a shortened Siegelman.

Will they ever work together? At this stage, it is highly unlikely, but as the Hollywood saying goes, ‘Never say Never.’

Who is Steven Seagal’s sister?

Steven Seagal’s sister is Brenda Seagal. Contrary to popular misconception, she is not related to Katey Sagal.

Both trees, side by side

Name	Place in the tree	Verified detail
Boris Sagal	Katey’s father	Director, born Yekaterinoslav, 1923
Sara Zwilling	Katey’s mother	Sang as “Sara Macon”
Jean Sagal	Sister, one of twins	Directed 2 Broke Girls episodes
Liz Sagal	Jean’s twin	Wrote for Mad About You
Joey Sagal	Brother	Met Elvis on Girl Happy
David Sagal	Second brother	Attorney, wed McNally Sagal 1988
Marge Champion	Stepmother from 1977	Dancer, married Boris
Samuel Seagal	Steven’s father	High school math teacher
Patricia Anne Fisher	Steven’s mother	Medical technician
Nathan Seagal	Steven’s grandfather	Surname originally “Siegelman”

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