First appearance "Pilot"
Last appearance "The Truth"
Portrayed by William B. Davis
Chris Owens (younger)
Craig Warkentin (younger)
Information
Occupation Department of Defense
Syndicate member
Men in Black Case Officer
Family:
Cassandra (ex-wife)
Jeffrey Frank Spender (son)
Fox Mulder (son)
Religion Atheist
Birthname C.G.B. Spender
Affiliated with Colonist
Central Intelligence Agency
National Security Agency
Federal Bureau of Investigation, The X-Files
The Smoking Man (sometimes referred to as Cancer Man, the Cigarette-Smoking Man, or CSM) is a fictional character and the antagonist on the American science fiction television series The X-Files. He serves as the arch-nemesis of FBI Special Agent Fox Mulder. Although his name is revealed to be C.G.B. Spender in the show's sixth season, fans continue to refer to him as the Smoking Man because he is almost always seen chain-smoking Morley cigarettes and because he, like other series villains, has multiple aliases.
Although he utters only four audible words in the entire first season of the show, the Smoking Man eventually develops into the series' primary antagonist. In his early appearances, he is seen in the offices of Division Chief Scott Blevins Assistant Director Walter Skinner, Mulder and his partner Dana Scully's supervisors. He works for a government conspiracy only known as the Syndicate, who are hiding the truth of alien existence and their plan to colonize Earth. He is eventually killed by a missile fired from a helicopter in New Mexico.
The Smoking Man is portrayed by Canadian actor William B. Davis. When Davis first received the role, the character was written as "just another" extra for the pilot episode. He eventually returned for small cameo appearances during the first season, making increasingly more appearances in the seasons that followed. Davis never received an award for his portrayal alone, but he was nominated for ensemble awards.
In the series, the birth date of the Smoking Man is never revealed, though conspiracy theorists known as The Lone Gunmen believe he was born during the early 1940s in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Much of his background is revealed in the fourth season episode "Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man". He is said to have grown up an orphan, his father having been executed by electric chair in Louisiana for treason for working as a Soviet spy, and his mother having died of lung cancer from smoking. In 1962, he was stationed along with Bill Mulder at a US Army Special Warfare Center at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. He was known for having a long history in black ops and American intelligence. He was involved in the training of Cuban rebels in the Bay of Pigs and the murders of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King as revealed in "Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man". In his first appearance in the series, he oversees FBI agent Dana Scully's briefing and debriefing, and later disposes of evidence Mulder and Scully had brought back from their investigation of an alien abduction. With the Smoking Man hiding truth from the public, Mulder seeks to reveal it to the public and the truth about the disappearance of his sister, Samantha. This leads to a rivalry that lasts until the end of the series.
In later seasons, it is revealed that he is a member of an unnamed group known as the Syndicate, a shadowy organization within the United States government. The episode "Two Fathers" reveals his birthname or alias as C.G.B. Spender, and that he was formerly married to Cassandra Spender, with whom he had a son, Jeffrey Spender. He recruits FBI Special Agent Diana Fowley to be a subordinate of his because she has a close relationship with Mulder. In "One Son", Jeffrey finds out that his dad, the Smoking Man, forced his mother Cassandra to undergo medical treatments that led to several nervous breakdowns during his childhood years. When the Smoking Man finds out, he kills Jeffrey. Knowing of the colonization plan, the Alien rebels return to Earth to try to persuade the Syndicate to join their side against their war with the Colonists. Not believing in the strength of the Alien rebels, the Syndicate members meet at El Rico Air Base to be transported to a spaceship to survive the colonization. But the rebels appear instead of the Colonists and kill all remaining chief members of the Syndicate. Together with Fowley, he escapes the destruction of the Syndicate. Later in the sixth season, there is more evidence that suggested that the Smoking Man is Mulder's biological father. Eventually in "The Sixth Extinction II: Amor Fati", Fowley comes in disagreement with him. Because of his plans to kill Mulder, Fowley helps Scully in her investigation to locate Mulder, which leads to her death. After the destruction of the Syndicate, the Smoking Man started to operate as he wished. However, his cancer resurfaced, and he became wheelchair-bound. In the end, Alex Krycek and Marita Covarrubias betray him in the episode "Requiem", throwing him down a flight of stairs, where they presume him to be dead.
Until the ninth season episode "William", the Smoking Man is presumed dead until Spender reappears. It is learned that his attempted murder of his son failed, which led him to subject his son to terrible experiments. In the series finale, "The Truth", Mulder and Scully travel through remote New Mexico and reach a pueblo where a "wise man" reputedly lives. It is in fact the Smoking Man. He is shown to be in the same condition as when he disappeared, but has degenerated further. He lives a primitive life in hiding from the "New" Syndicate. He tells Mulder and Scully all he has left to reveal (including the fact that the aliens are scheduled to invade in 2012), and shortly after is finally killed by a missile shot from a helicopter ordered by Knowle Rohrer.
