- published: 22 Feb 2016
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David William Duchovny (born August 7, 1960) is an American actor, writer and director. He has won Golden Globe awards for his work as FBI Special Agent Fox Mulder on The X-Files and Hank Moody on Californication.
Duchovny was born in New York City, New York, the son of Margaret "Meg" (née Miller), a school administrator and teacher, and Amram Ducovny (1927–2003), a writer and publicist who worked for the American Jewish Committee. David's paternal grandparents were Jewish emigrants from Ukraine, and his mother is a Lutheran emigrant from Aberdeen, Scotland. His father dropped the h in his last name to avoid the sort of mispronunciations he encountered while serving in the Army.
Duchovny attended Grace Church School and The Collegiate School For Boys; both are in Manhattan. He graduated from Princeton University in 1982 with a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature. He was a member of the Charter Club, one of the university's eating clubs. In 1982, his poetry received an honorable mention for a college prize from the Academy of American Poets. The title of his senior thesis was The Schizophrenic Critique of Pure Reason in Beckett's Early Novels. Duchovny played a season of junior varsity basketball as a shooting guard and centerfield for the varsity baseball team.