Acclaimed movie actor and host of the Food Network’s “Iron Chef America” Mark Dacascos was the host at the Wing Luke Asian Museum’s Year
of New Beginnings Dinner and Auction. The event took place on April 4 at the Bell Harbor International Conference Center. It featured local chefs Gerold Castro of Kawali Grill, Gian Jaswal of India Bistro, Alex Nguyen of Saigon Bistro, Alan Quan of Four Seas, Christina Scholz of ATA Farms, and Rachel Yang of Joule. Born and raised in Hawaii until he was 6, Dacascos adopted his family’s devotion to the martial arts and won his first international tournament &mdash the Long Beach Internationals &mdash at age 9 in 1973. He also won the lightweight championship in the brown belt division at the European Kung Fu and Karate Championships in 1982. “When a lot of other families went off to picnics or played tennis on the weekends, we went off to tournaments, and we would all fight in the tournaments,” said Dacascos, 45. His father, Al Dacascos, was his first martial arts instructor. Al Dacascos founded a new form of martial arts that combined Chinese and Filipino elements. It is called Wun Hop Kuen Do. “He’s of Spanish, Chinese, and Filipino descent,” Mark Dacascos said of his father. “He’s a professional martial arts instructor, but [my grandfather] was an orchestra leader.” Al Dacascos and martial arts legend Bruce Lee crossed paths at one international competition. “They met each other, &hellip became friends, traded ideas, and so forth. When Bruce Lee passed away in 1973, Linda (Bruce’s wife) and some producers were going to [film] the life story [of] her husband at that time. And, her first choice to play Bruce Lee happened to be my father,” Dacascos said. Actor Jason Scott Lee eventually played the role in Rob Cohen’s “Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story” (1993).
Mark Dacascos said his stepmother, Malia Bernal, was the top-rated female martial artist for five years.