Dan Ivan(1929-2007)

Dan Ivan (a.k.a., Daniel Donald Ivan and Daniel Vargo) was born in Ohio, USA about 1930 to Edith and Daniel Ivan. He grew up in Alliance, Ohio, USA where he had three sisters and two brothers. His mother later remarried. He sometimes went by the name Danny Vargo. He was on his way to becoming a juvenile delinquent-perhaps had already earned that designation-when, at age 15, in 1945, the local police "helped" Dan to lie about his age and join the U.S. Army.

Dan was sent to Occupied Japan where he learned Japanese and became a member of the Criminal Investigations Division, which is sort of the Army equivalent of NCIS, charged with investigating crimes involving servicemen. Dan studied judo with the U.S. Army but soon became interested in studying karate and other martial arts with local Japanese in Tokyo. He returned to the United States in the 1950s and set up a karate dojo in 1956 in Southern California. He eventually owned eight dojos. Through various contacts in the martial arts world he connected with stunt men and fight choreographers, eventually getting parts in a few movies. He married a Japanese wife and is the father of Douglas Ivan who appeared in "Three Little Ninjas and the Lost Treasure". After a career of teaching martial arts to the public as well as to law enforcement and the military, Ivan died in Loma Linda, California in 2007.