Ethan is best known among Geeks for his role of Neelix on Star Trek: Voyager from 1995 to 2001. Neelix is kinda like that sticky stuff that’s on a subway pole, that you accidentally put your hand in, that you can never quite seem to wipe off all the way. You have to ride the rest of your subway trip wondering what the hell that sticky stuff is. Now its partially wiped on your pants, on your jacket, etc. Is it Jelly, is it snot, is it something worse!? That’s what Neelix was to Star Trek Voyager.

Phillips stayed with the series through its entire seven-season run, and also performed a cameo as the holographic nightclub maître d’ in the 1996 film, Star Trek: First Contact. Phillips also appeared as a Ferengi pirate captain on an episode of Star Trek: Enterprise.

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.

Some facts about Ethan: Narrated the JASON undersea probe exhibit at Walt Disney World’s EPCOT Center’s “The Living Seas.”

His father was the owner of the famous New York steakhouse Frankie and Johnnie’s, which still serves up “the most delicious sirloin in all of Manhattan.”

He is an accomplished tenor sax player.

He has five sisters, Maddy, Maria, Joanny, Meg, and Angie.

Acting mentor was Robert Guillaume aka Benson.