<Tr> <Th> Children </Th> <Td> 2 daughters, Melinda and Rebecca </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Th> Website </Th> <Td> williambdavis.com </Td> </Tr> <P> William Bruce Davis (born January 13, 1938) is a Canadian actor and director, best known for his role as the Cigarette Smoking Man on The X-Files . Besides appearing in many TV programs and movies, Davis founded his own acting school, the William Davis Centre for Actors Study . In his personal life, Davis is an avid water - skier, lectures on skepticism at events such as the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry's CSICon, and advocates for action on climate change . In 2011 Davis published his memoir, Where There's Smoke...The Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man . </P> <P> Davis was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, to a lawyer father and psychologist mother . He began his acting career as a child in 1949, in radio drama and summer stock theatre . His cousins Murray and Donald Davis ran the Straw Hat Players in Ontario in the late 1940s and early 1950s, and rehearsed in the basement of Davis' house . When they needed a boy they gave William his first professional acting job . He went on from there to have a career as a boy actor on Canadian Broadcasting Corporation radio before his voice broke . In 1955 he enrolled in the University of Toronto to study philosophy, but actively pursued a career as an actor alongside future actor Donald Sutherland . In 1959, he graduated from the University of Toronto with a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy . While at university he switched his attention from acting to directing and with his partner, Karl Jaffary, took over and ran the Straw Hat Players for four years . </P>

Who played the smoking man in x files