Diana Lee Inosanto

Inosanto was born in Torrance, California.  Her father, Dan Inosanto, would honor his martial arts teacher by naming her as his first-born child, Diana “Lee”, after his close friend, Bruce Lee.    Inosanto’s father, was also a former Army man with the 101 Airborne Division stationed in Ft. Campbell, Kentucky.  After his military life, Dan Inosanto would return to California.  In 1964, he would meet Diana’s mother, Sue Inosanto, a secretary for the aerospace industry and former modern dancer.  They were introduced by the man known as the “Father of American Kenpo Karate,” Ed Parker.   Parker was one of her father’s earliest martial arts instructors.

In early years, Diana’s father supported their family as a schoolteacher in history and physical education at Malaga Cove Junior High School in Palos Verdes, California.  However, by night and on the weekends, Diana’s father was a martial arts teacher at the Los Angeles Chinatown  school (known as the Jun Fan Gung Fu Institute under Bruce Lee) and years later, their backyard gym in Carson, California.   Diana Lee Inosanto was also heavily influenced by her grandparents, Sebastian Inosanto and Mary Arca Inosanto, who were political farm leaders establishing the first farm workers union in the state of California in the mid-1930s.  In addition, they were early founders of the Trinity Presbyterian Church in Stockton, California in 1942.

Being raised in an East meets West family, Inosanto’s background would include Filipino, Chinese and Spanish ancestry from her father, and Irish and French ancestry from her mother.  

Because of Inosanto’s martial arts ability, she was spotted by the producers of Barb Wire who saw her demonstrating a fight scene with Ron Balicki who had been training New Zealand actor, Temuera Morrison.  She was asked  to be included in the fight scene with Morrison (a stunt acting role that was originally written for a man.)  Thereafter, she was immediately recommended to be the martial arts stunt double for Daytime Emmy Award winning actress, Sarah Michelle Gellar for the presentation to pitch Buffy the Vampire Slayer as a TV Show, directed by Joss Whedon.  This would be the beginning of Diana’s years as a stuntwoman in Hollywood where she found success working on popular film and TV shows.

When it came to the performing arts, Diana began learning dance under the encouragement of her mother, and drama under the guidance of her aunt, Asian American actress Lilia Inosanto, also known as Lona Nai.   She would later participate in high school plays at Narbonne High School.  Upon graduation, her Aunt Lilia guided Diana to study with famed Broadway casting director and acting teacher, the late Michael Shurtleff, author of the renowned book ‘Audition’ a bible for aspiring actors.   Years later, she would go on to study with Asian American character actor, Tzi Ma through East West Players workshops and joined Lodestone Theater Ensemble, continuing to grow as an actress, participating in everything from Shakespeare to contemporary plays.  She also explored the Michael Chekhov method with acting coach, Lisa Dalton.

In 2012, she appears in the film I Am Bruce Lee  along with her father about being a firsthand witness to the impact the late Bruce Lee had around the world and the close friendship her father had with his late close friend and teacher.

In addition, Inosanto also had the support of the Matthew Shepard Foundation.  In fact, so powerful was her message about on “The Sensei” that the Asian American Justice Center presented Ms. Inosanto with the 2011 American Courage Award, in Washington, D.C. where members of Congress and humanitarian activists were present, to honor her bravery and dedication to the cause of civil rights and use of incredible creative aptitude to deliver the message of advancing social justice.

By 2011, Diana Lee Inosanto became the first woman to receive the Maverick Award at the AOF International Film Festival.

By 2010, Inosanto’s first Indie film, The Sensei, a film that she wrote, directed, and starred in, would be one of the earliest digitally released films distributed on Netflix and I-Tunes.  Filmed on a small budget, The Sensei was a film that takes place in the 1980s.  It tells a story about a gay teenager being bullied in a rural town during the height of the AIDS epidemic in middle America. The character McClain is befriended by a female martial arts teacher (Inosanto) who teaches him to defend himself and more important, self-acceptance.

She has appeared on the cover of numerous martial arts magazines including Black Belt Magazine, Martial Arts Illustrated, Inside Karate, Self Defense and Inside Kung Fu. Diana Lee Inosanto was named Woman of the year by Black Belt Magazine in 2009.

Inosanto is active in Southern California theatre, as a member of the Asian American theatre group, Lodestone Theatre Ensemble. In 2008 she worked with East West Players, serving as Martial Arts Choreographer on the world premiere of Dan Kwong's play Be Like Water.

On December 6th, 1995 they were married. By 1996, they would establish an organization called Martial Arts Research Systems, also known as MARS or MARS Action Group, teaching people from different walks of life: civilians, military, police and even Hollywood actors and stunt performers looking to expand their physical expression on camera. Together, they would progressively build together a martial arts seminar circuit teaching students in the United States, Canada, Australia, China and Europe. By 2003, they had a son together.

In 1994, Diana met Ron Balicki, a former Cooke County Deputy Sheriff and long time martial arts student and instructor under her father. Formally from Chicago, Illinois, Ron Balicki moved to Los Angeles to manage the Inosanto Academy of Martial Arts and establish himself as a stuntman, fight trainer, choreographer and stunt coordinator.

While pursuing a professional career in acting in the 1990s, Diana discovered that the Hollywood system lacked opportunities in diversity and that roles that casted for ethnically ambiguous types like herself were rare. Even more challenging, she had an early marriage that ended in divorce after three years. She also found herself a single mother of a son with autism and assumed she would have to quit Hollywood and find a traditional line of work to better care for her son.  

Years after the death of Bruce Lee in 1973, original Chinatown student and her father’s martial arts training partner, Richard Bustillo and his wife, Mary Bustillo, would become her second godfather and godmother.  In 1974, Dan Inosanto and Richard Bustillo would formally establish the Filipino Kali Academy in Torrance, California and for many years they would attract students and guest instructors from around the world. By 1985 Inosanto's father would venture on his own and establish the Inosanto Academy of Martial Arts in the Marina del Rey, California

Diana Lee Inosanto (born May 29, 1966) is an American actress, producer, director, writer, retired stuntwoman, and martial artist, sometimes credited as D. Lee Inosanto.