Michael Ansara

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William Shatner (left) and Michael Ansara (right) in the Star Trek episode Day of the Dove.

Michael Ansara as Elric in Babylon 5

Michael Ansara (born April 15, 1922) is a stage, screen and voice actor.

Ansara was born in Syria. His family immigrated to the United States when he was two years old. He originally wanted to be a physician but developed a passion for acting when he began acting classes to overcome his shyness.

It was the popular TV series Broken Arrow (1956) where he played the lead role of Cochise, raising Ansara's profile and making him a household name on television. Whilst making the series, the 20th Century Fox Publicity Department arranged a date between Ansara and actress Barbara Eden. The two later married and Ansara guest starred on the I Dream of Jeannie series (on which his wife starred), as the Blue Djinn, who had imprisoned Jeannie in a bottle. The couple had one son together, actor Matthew Ansara, who died on June 25, 2001 after a heroin overdose.

Michael Ansara and Barbara Eden divorced in 1974. In 1977, Ansara starred in the movie Mohammad, Messenger of God (also titled The Message) about the origin of Islam, and the message of prophet Mohammad. Ansara is now semi-retired.

In recent years he is perhaps best known as the voice of Mr. Freeze in Batman: The Animated Series.

Along with Jonathan Frakes, Marina Sirtis, Armin Shimerman, John de Lancie and Richard Poe, he is one of only six actors to play the same character on three different Star Trek series. He played Kang in Star Trek: The Original Series, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager. He also provided the voice of Q's supervisor in the Next Generation episode True Q and played Lwaxana Troi's husband Jeyal on the Deep Space Nine episode, "The Muse".

Ansara played the Technomage Elric in the acclaimed sci-fi series Babylon 5 in the episode The Geometry of Shadows, in which Elric and his fellow Technomages go into hiding, anticipating the return of the Shadows and the subsequent great war that will tear the galaxy apart. The Elric character is to feature prominently in the "Technomage Trilogy" books that deal with events before, during and after the Technomages go into hiding.

Ansara played "Killer Kane" in the 1979-1980 season of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, and previously played two different characters in two episodes of the 1966 Sci-Fi TV series The Time Tunnel. In episode #11, he played Colonel Hruda and in episode #28 played The Curator.