Seagal Under Siege

By RICHARD CORLISS

You wouldn't dare say this in their presence -- if you're smart, you won't invite them to the same planet -- but Steven Seagal and Spy magazine have a few things in common.

Both leaped to prominence in the late Reagan years: Seagal as a from-nowhere star in his first movie (Above the Law), Spy as the hipper-than-thou champion of attitude journalism. Both like to make fun of short people. Both offered sleek twists on tired genres: Seagal the martial-arts movie, Spy the glossy gossip rag. Both are deeply indebted to Creative Artists Agency boss Michael Ovitz, who is Seagal's movie mentor and Spy's eternal obsession. And both have sturdy Time Warner credentials: Seagal as one of Warner Bros.' most reliable moneymakers (Hard to Kill, Under Siege) and Spy as a publication founded by former TIME writers Kurt Andersen (now back at TIME as editor at large) and E. Graydon Carter.

If the sleepy-eyed star and representatives of Spy get together soon, it won't be to swap Separated at Birth stories but to stare one another down in court. Seagal, a sixth-degree black belt in aikido, is steamed by the prospect of a blistering profile written by John Connolly, a former New York City police detective. The article, to be published this week, alleges that Seagal associates with gangsters and that he offered money to ex-intelligence agents to have one of his adversaries entrapped and two others murdered.

"Steven won't talk, on or off the record," says a Seagal spokesman. Neither will Ovitz. And Warner Bros. publicity chief Robert Friedman will say only that Seagal is "an extremely cooperative filmmaker and actor who's a pleasure to do business with." But on April 16, when Connolly was still compiling his article, the star filed a slander suit against the writer and Robert Strickland, a former Seagal friend and Connolly's main source. According to Seagal's attorney, Martin Singer, Strickland had been harassing and defaming the actor. Singer contends that Connolly, in his interviewing for the Spy story, made "wild, fabricated statements about our client, trying to damage his reputation in the industry. We have reason to believe these are the same wild stories Mr. Strickland came up with." In a motion to strike the complaint, Connolly denied slandering Seagal, and Spy joined him in accusing the star of attempting prior restraint of the article.

Seagal used to enjoy hinting mysteriously about the "special work and favors" he did for "many powerful people" in Asia in the '70s. Sounds suitably spooky. "Steven likes to be at the cutting edge of the unsaid truths about 'how the world works,' " says director Andrew Davis (Above the Law, Under Siege). "He enjoys that kind of stuff . . . He tries to live it." But Strickland and Gary Goldman, an ex-mercenary who worked on a Seagal script before falling out with the star, have insisted that Seagal purloined these life-or-death exploits from actual agents. Writer Alan Richman addressed these questions in a 1991 GQ article that nettled Seagal. Spy asserts it was Richman, a heterosexual, whom Seagal wanted framed in a homosexual encounter, and that Goldman was one of those whom Seagal wanted killed.

Perhaps there is another Spy-Seagal similarity here. Both are adept at high- wire innuendo -- Spy as a key to its satirical japery, Seagal as a spur to his myth. If he did make these remarks, he may have intended them as macho provocations, as sick jokes or as acid tests -- the ultimate Spy prank.

Connolly has other hairy charges: that Seagal was a bigamist when he was courting his current wife, actress Kelly LeBrock; that two female aides were paid to keep quiet about his sexual harassment of them; that among his friends are kinfolk of various godfathers and gonifs. "Steven likes to hang out with the underworld of espionage," says J.F. Lawton, who wrote Under Siege, "and maybe also of crime. But I don't see Steven rubbing anyone out. And if you have Michael Ovitz behind you, you don't really need the Mob."

Connolly, whose piece mixes seemingly meticulous research with some sloppy checking (author Joe Hyams is confused with a Warner executive who has the same name), spoke with Seagal's ex-wives and other sources. But his star witness is Strickland, a former CIA agent who suffers from depression and has been institutionalized 11 times. Nonetheless, Strickland's psychiatrist, Dr. Paul Ackerman of Los Angeles, says he "is not insane, has absolutely no delusions or hallucinations." Today Strickland is in hiding, because, he says, "I think Steven's dangerous. He's got the money and some very near-the- edge people who follow him around." Yet he believes that Seagal would not personally carry out acts of violence, "because he's a very timid guy. I've seen him back down when he was confronted."

Spy, which has long had an edgy relationship with movie stars -- it has made its reputation by soiling theirs -- may soon find out if Steven Seagal is dangerous or timid. Both the star and the magazine are under siege and out for justice.

With reporting by Jeffrey Ressner/Los Angeles