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Bio

William Bruce Davis was born on January 13, 1938 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He began his acting career at age 11, when his cousins needed a boy actor for the murder mystery they were staging for a summer stock festival. Work in stage and radio followed. In 1959 he earned a BA in Philosophy at the University of Toronto and was accepted at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. He joined Britain's National Theatre in 1965, working with Maggie Smith and Lawrence Olivier, and returned to Montreal the following year to become Artistic Director of the National Theater School. This resulted in a succession of supporting roles in movies and TV programmes. He was also Artistic Director of the Vancouver Playhouse Acting School.

In 1989 he opened and is currently Director of the William Davis Centre for Actors' Study in Vancouver, B.C., a school for beginner to advanced acting professionals, where he instructs classes whenever time permits. See a photo!

He enjoys both snow- and water-skiing, and has made a habit of winning the Canadian National Water-skiing Competition for his age group each year. He is also a certified downhill ski instructor.

Mr. Davis is not a smoker -- he quit long ago! The cigarettes he smokes on The X-Files are specially blended herbal cigarettes which are lit using a mechanical device on the set, allowing him to avoid the action of lighting up. He discourages everyone from smoking and is active in Cancer Research fund raising.

His favourite X-Files episode is 'Talitha Cumi' (Season 3), but 'Two Fathers' (Season 6) and the episode he wrote for Season 7, 'En Ami', are close seconds. He is a fan and watches the programme regularly.

Vancouver is home. He has two children.

You can learn a lot more of interest by reading Mr. Davis' on-line chats.

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Credits

TV/Film

For you mytharc aficionados, here's a complete list of The X-Files episodes in which Cigarette-Smoking Man surfaces. (Thanks to XWP for her help compiling these.)

For more information regarding Mr. Davis's TV and film roles, please visit the Internet Movie Database.

Two cautions:

1. Don't rent Dead Zone for the sole purpose of seeing Mr. Davis: while he's listed in the credits, he says even he can't find himself in it!
2. Likewise Look Who's Talking. According to the somewhat disappointed Lynne, all he does is hand Kirstie Alley a Demarol in this film.

Stage

It's my hope to provide a complete and accurate list of Mr. Davis's theatre work, including his directing stints. Watch this space!

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