An American writer and actor, born in Chicago, United States to Soviet parents. He moved to Manhattan, New York from Chicago as a child, after his family left Lithuania, and studied at Grinnell College in Iowa, majoring in medicine, then obtained a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from the University of California. He then moved to a theater school in New York, and began his acting career with the TV series Combat in 1962. His credits include The Questor Tapes, Goodbye, Raggedy Ann, and Star Trek.