Short Biography

David William Duchovny (born August 7, 1960) is a two-time Golden Globe Award-winning American television and film actor, best known for his roles as FBI Special Agent Fox Mulder on The X-Files and as Hank Moody on Californication.

Early life
Duchovny was born in New York City, New York, the son of Margaret "Meg" (née Miller), a school administrator and teacher, and Amram Ducovny (Duchovny), a writer and publicist who worked for the American Jewish Committee. Duchovny`s paternal grandparents were Russian Jews and his mother is a Lutheran immigrant from Scotland. His father dropped the "h" in his surname because of frequent mispronunciations of the name. Duchovny`s siblings are Daniel and Laurie Duchovny. He attended The Collegiate School For Boys in Manhattan and ultimately graduated from Princeton University. He also holds a Master`s degree in English Literature from Yale University and began work on a Ph.D. that remains unfinished. The title of his uncompleted doctoral thesis was "Magic and Technology in Contemporary Poetry and Prose." At Princeton, Duchovny was a member of the Charter Club, one of the University`s eating clubs, where upperclassmen take their meals. In 1982, while at Princeton, his poetry received an honorable mention for a college prize from the Academy of American Poets and the title of his senior thesis was The Schizophrenic Critique of Pure Reason in Beckett`s Early Novels. Also while at Princeton, he played a season of junior varsity basketball, as a shooting guard, and two playing center field for the varsity baseball team.

Career
Duchovny appeared in an advertisement for Löwenbräu beer in 1987. He had a recurring role as a transvestite DEA agent on the series Twin Peaks and played the narrator/host in the long-running Showtime erotica/softcore TV series Red Shoe Diaries. In 1993, Duchovny began starring in the sci-fi series The X-Files as FBI Special Agent Fox Mulder, a conspiracy theorist who believed his sister was abducted by aliens. The show emerged as a cult hit and quickly became one of The FOX Network`s first major hits. During the show`s run, in between the fifth and sixth seasons, Duchovny co-starred alongside Gillian Anderson in a 1998 motion picture that continued the X-Files storyline, titled The X-Files: Fight the Future. He remained with the series until quitting in 2001, partly due to a contract dispute that occurred after season seven finished filming. Duchovny appeared in half of the season eight episodes, but did not appear in season nine until the series finale in 2002. He also provided the voice for a parody of his Fox Mulder character in an episode of The Simpsons, entitled The Springfield Files.

Duchovny caused controversy when it became public that he was the primary reason that filming of The X-Files series was moved from Vancouver, British Columbia to Los Angeles in 1998. Many residents of Vancouver were upset with Duchovny over scripted jokes on Conan O`Brien`s late night show about the city`s heavy rainfall; he joked that "Vancouver is a very nice place, if you like 400 inches of rainfall a day." He also stated, "Of course, I`m tired of the rain. But if I wasn`t married to a woman that lives in L.A. I`d stay in Vancouver. It`s a lovely city." During the run of The X-Files, he also made several guest appearances in the cult TV satire The Larry Sanders Show, playing himself, but adding a strong attraction to Sanders. In the final episode of the series, he perf

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