William B. Davis, was born in Ontario, Canada on the 13th of January 1938. He started of his acting career as a child. Several years later he moved to England to study drama, he work in small theatres and also taught there for a few years, he then moved back to Canada. He started teaching acting upon his return. He moved to Vancouver to take over and run The Vancouver Playhouse Acting School, he left there to open his own school called the William Davis Centre for Actor's Studies. One time he atteded an acting class himself and realised he had learned enough in all his years of teaching to take up acting himself. To that end he found an agent and began to find work in local T.V. shows. He then landed the role of Cancer-Man. As for his actually smoking himself, he doesn't he gave them up two decades ago, on the show he smokes menthol cigarettes.