Early life

Aniston was born Giannis Anastasakis (Greek: Γιάννης Αναστασάκης) in Chania on the island of Crete, Greece, the son of Stella Joanne (October 1, 1899 — November 7, 1992) and Antonios Anastasakis (January 17, 1889 — May, 1965). His father anglicized his name when he immigrated to the United States when Aniston was two, and his parents opened a restaurant in Chester, Pennsylvania.

He graduated from Pennsylvania State University with a bachelor's degree in Theater Arts. While at Penn State, he became a member of Alpha Chi Rho fraternity. After college, he served in the United States Navy as an intelligence officer on active duty in Panama and later in the reserve, attaining the rank of Lieutenant Commander.

Personal life

John has a daughter, actress Jennifer Aniston (born February 11, 1969), with his first wife, Nancy Dow, and also has a son, Alexander, with his second wife, Sherry Rooney Aniston (whom he met while they worked on Love of Life, in which she played attorney Dory Patten who was in love with his character, Eddie Aleata). His daughter Jennifer's godfather was actor Telly Savalas, one of his best friends.

Career

He has appeared in soap operas regularly since 1969, when he first joined Days of Our Lives as a character named Eric Richards, which he played until 1970. In 1975, he joined the cast of Love of Life as Eddie Aleata. In November 1978, he left Love and began playing Mary Stuart's new love interest, Martin Tourneur, on Search for Tomorrow in February 1979. He played that role until April 1984. He returned to the cast of Days of Our Lives a second time this time as Victor Kiriakis in July 1985 and continues to play the role.

He also played a small role on the television series Gilmore Girls. Aniston made guest appearances on Airwolf (Season 2), Combat, My Big Fat Greek Life, Star Trek: Voyager, Mission: Impossible, American Dreams (with Days co-star Frances Reid), Journeyman, and Mad Men.

Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Director	Notes
1975-1978	Love of Life	Eddie Aleata	Roy Winsor	TV Series
1962	87th Precinct	Officer #1	Evan Hunter	TV Series (1 Episode : "New Man in the Precinct")
1963	Love with the Proper Stranger	Birdman of Macy's	Robert Mulligan
1964	Combat!	Greek #2		TV Series (1 Episode : "Vendetta")
1967	I Spy	Economides		TV Series (1 Episode : "The Beautiful Children")
	Accidental Family			TV Series (1 Episode : "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Playground")
1968	The Shakiest Gun in the West	Indian	Alan Rafkin
	The Virginian	Frank West		TV Series (1 Episode : "Ride to Misadventure")
	Now You See It, Now You Don't	Achmed	Don Weis	TV Movie
1969	Mission: Impossible	First IMF Captain	Bruce Geller	TV Series (1 Episode : "Time Bomb")
1970	That Girl	Phil Harvey	Sam Denoff Bill Persky	TV Series (1 Episode : "Stop the Presses I Want to Get Off")
1974	Kojak	Webster / Dancik	Abby Mann	TV Series (2 Episodes)
1979-1984	Search for Tomorrow	Martin Tourneur	Agnes Nixon Roy Winsor	TV Series (Episode #1.8556)
1985	Airwolf	Colonel Arturo Alzar	Donald P. Bellisario	TV Series (1 Episode : "Short Walk to Freedom")
1985-present	Days of Our Lives	Victor Kiriakis	Ted Corday Betty Corday	TV Series (1896 Episodes)
1993	Night Sins	Victor Kiriakis	Stephen Wyman	TV Movie
1997	Diagnosis Murder	Carlton Everest	Joyce Burditt	TV Series (1 Episode : "Must Kill TV")
	Fired Up	Gordon	Paul Slansky Arleen Sorkin	TV Series (1 Episode : "Honey, I Shrunk the Turkey")
1999	L.A. Heat	Alex Zota	Joseph Merhi Richard Pepin	TV Series (1 Episode : "Faces of Fear")
2001	Star Trek: Voyager	Quarren Ambassador	Rick Berman Michael Piller Jeri Taylor	TV Series (2 Episodes)
2002	The West Wing	Alexander Thompson	Aaron Sorkin	TV Series (2 Episodes)
	Gilmore Girls	Douglas Swope	Amy Sherman-Palladino	TV Series (1 Episode : "A Deep-Fried Korean Thanksgiving")
2003	My Big Fat Greek Life	Constantine Christakos		TV Series (1 Episode : "Greek Easter")
2004	American Dreams	John Victor	Jonathan Prince	TV Series (1 Episode : "Old Enough to Fight")
2007	Order Up	Wise Man	Neil A. Stelzner	Short
	Sands of Oblivion	Nigel Barrington	David Flores	TV Movie
	Journeyman	Merrit Ambaucher	Kevin Falls	TV Series (1 Episode : "Home by Another Way")
2008	The Awakening of Spring	Mr. Gable	Arthur Allan Seidelman
	Worst Week	Jim		TV Series (1 Episode : "The Wedding")
	Fixing Rhonda	Detective Macomas	James Biberi Nellie Sciutto
2009	The Gold & the Beautiful	Gerard Benedict	Jack Serino
	Cold Case	Herbert 'Wolf' James '09	Meredith Stiehm	TV Series (1 Episode : "WASP")
2010	Mad Men	Wallace Harriman	Matthew Weiner	TV Series (1 Episode : "Waldorf Stories")
2011	The Paul Reiser Show	Harold Melon	Paul Reiser	TV Series (1 Episode : "The Old Guy")
2014	Return to Zero	Ned	Sean Hanish

[ Source: Wikipedia ]