From matching strength and wits with martial artist Jet Li, Mark Dacascos is now contending in a more difficult battle; he is "cha-cha-ing" his way to the championship of Dancing with the Stars with dance partner Lacey Schwimmer.
When asked how his experience at Dancing with the Stars compares with his martial arts scenes with Jet Li, Mark admitted during the We are One concert for Typhoon Ondoy victims last Oct 22, that "dancing is harder."
Actor, musician, action star, gymnast, and world-renowned champion martial artist Mark Dacascos has taken on challenges all of his life. As Mark likes to say, "You have two ways to look at life. You can see difficulty in opportunity or see opportunity in difficulty." Famously known as "The Chairman" and host of Food Network’s Iron Chef America, Dacascos was born in Honolulu, Hawaii on February 26, 1964. His passion for martial arts began at an early age under the tutelage of his parents who are both former national champions and teachers. His Filipino father, Al Dacascos, is the founder of the martial art, Wun Hop Kuen Do, and his stepmother is award-winning martial artist Malia Bernal, the first woman to grace the cover of Black Belt Magazine. His mother, Moriko McVey, is of Irish and Japanese ancestry.
Mark won over 20 championships in karate and various styles of kung fu between the ages of 7 and 18. He has since trained in many different styles including capoeira, wu-shu, muay thai, and Northern Shaolin kung fu. Mark has spent most of his life training with some of the best martial arts teachers in the world. He said he believes that he will be a "student " in the arts for the rest of his life.
Dacascos became an actor after being discovered walking down the street in San Francisco’s Chinatown by two men working for director Wayne Wang. He has gone on to establish a film and television career playing not only martial artists but a wide arrangement of characters, in over 40 films and over a hundred TV episodes. His breakout role was in the 1993 film, Only the Strong, in which he played Louis, a Capoeira master who takes high school’s potential failures and turns their lives around by teaching them the venerable Brazilian martial art.
Among the shows/films he has starred in are CSI, The Legend of Bruce Lee, Doogie Howser MD, General Hospital, American Samurai, Kickboxer, Double Dragon, and Cradle 2 The Grave, in which he squared off against Jet Li. He has also appeared in the short-lived but critically acclaimed television series The Crow: Stairway to Heaven, which was a follow-up to the 1994 film The Crow.
