Ethan Phillips was born on February 8, 1955 in Garden City, Long Island, New York as the only boy of six children. He graduated from Boston University with a degree in English Literature and received a Masters Degree in Fine Arts from Cornell University.

He began his acting career on stage in both Broadway and off-Broadway shows including "My Favorite Year" at Lincoln Center, "Measure for Measure" for the NYSF, "Lips Togther Teeth Apart" for Manhattan Theatre Club, and "Modigliani" at the Astor Place, and in new works for Playwites Horizons, Ensemble Studio Theatre, the Hudson Guild Theatre, the American Jewish Theatre, and many others. During his comprehensive acting career, he also played leading roles for many of the major regional theaters around the country such as San Diego Old Globe, Seattle Rep, Actors' Theatre of Louisville, Mark Taper Forum, Baltimore Center Stage, the Geffen in Los Angeles, Pasadena Playhouse, the McCarter Theatre, and the Boston Shakespeare Company. He spent ten summers at the Sundance Theatre Lab and is a co-founder of First Stage in Los Angeles, which has been developing new plays for over twenty years.

Phillips has been on several popular TV shows and movies, including five seasons on Benson, and seven seasons on Star Trek: Voyager. He has been a guest star on scores of other television shows. Ethan has appeared in many feature films and award winning shorts and has an active voice-over career. Phillips is also a playwright and an author. His original play, "Penguin Blues" has been produced more than 150 times throughout USA and Canada.


Narrated the JASON undersea probe exhibit at Walt Disney World's EPCOT Center's "The Living Seas." Along with Armin Shimerman and Tim Russ, he is one of only three "Star Trek" regulars to appear in three different "Star Trek" series ("Star Trek: The Next Generation" (1987), "Star Trek: Voyager" (1995) and "Enterprise" (2001)). His favourite "Star Trek" character is Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy. He has five sisters, Maddy, Maria, Joanny, Meg, and Angie.