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Ethan Phillips (born February 8, 1955) is an American actor, playwright and author. He is known for television roles such as Star Trek: Voyager's Neelix and Benson's Pete Downey. Raised in Garden City, New York, Phillips was raised in an Irish Catholic family, the only boy out of six children. His father and grandfather were the owners of Frankie and Johnnie’s Restaurant, the famous steak house in New York City. Phillips attended Boston University and received a bachelor's degree in English literature and an Master of Fine Arts from Cornell University. As of 2008, he lives in Los... MORE

Ethan Phillips (born February 8, 1955) is an American actor, playwright and author. He is known for television roles such as Star Trek: Voyager's Neelix and Benson's Pete Downey. Raised in Garden City, New York, Phillips was raised in an Irish Catholic family, the only boy out of six children. His father and grandfather were the owners of Frankie and Johnnie’s Restaurant, the famous steak house in New York City. Phillips attended Boston University and received a bachelor's degree in English literature and an Master of Fine Arts from Cornell University. As of 2008, he lives in Los Angeles, California, with his wife Patricia Cresswell, an artist. They were married August 10, 1990. He is an avid backpacker and an accomplished tenor saxophonist, and enjoys ornithology and botany. After leaving Cornell, Phillips began his show business career performing in Broadway and off-Broadway plays– at many different theatres, including the Direct Theatre where he won the Best of the Actors’ Festival in 1977, the Wonderhorse Theatre in the premier of Christopher Durang’s The Nature and Purpose of the Universe, with Ellen Greene, and at Playwrights Horizons in a revival of Eccentricities of a LESS