Before he made the jump to acting full time, Dominic Keating worked in a knitting factory and a rubber molding factory and was "fired from just about every restaurant on King's Road in Chelsea." Still, the actor has an undeniable spark — his early instructors referred to him as a "bright, young hope."

Keating, who was born in Leicester, England, brought this same spark to his role as Armory Officer Malcolm Reed on Star Trek: Enterprise. Because Reed was a fairly by-the-book sort of guy, his occasional flashes of passion and anger were all the more potent. Just witness him telling off new friend Trip Tucker in "Shuttlepod One," or insisting that the captain let him die in the second season's "Minefield." In the third season, his temper flared against Major Hayes in "Harbinger," and by the fourth season, his secret past came back to haunt him in "Affliction" and "Divergence." Plus, we had a revealing glimpse at his alternate universe counterpart in "In a Mirror, Darkly." In each case, though (barring that last one), Reed's moral fortitude and loyalty to his position and his peers won the day.

For his part, Keating is pleased with the opportunities the show has afforded him. "They've given me so much to do on this show — like 'Shuttlepod One.' To be honest, it's the best work I've ever done in front of a camera," he told STARTREK.COM in 2002. The challenge of playing Malcolm Reed, as four seasons of the show bore out, is that he is "quite enigmatic." Keating observed, "You cannot pigeonhole this character. You can, but he does have the ability to play at odds with himself."

Prior to being cast as Reed, Keating was a regular on the UK sitcom Desmond's and was featured in such films as "Jungle 2 Jungle." He also guested on such genre-friendly shows as G vs. E and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. More recently he has been seen in Las Vegas. Keating has appeared extensively on the stage and has collected a few awards for his work. At one point in his career, he was famous for a series of Vidal Sassoon commercials where his pronunciation of "salon" was parodied in a Saturday Night Live sketch (look at his official site under "Media" for a couple of those commercials).

These days, the actor continues to land roles in low-budget and big-budget projects alike. He recently did a short with Jeffrey Combs called "The Attackmen," and you may see him soon in a feature film called "Certifiably Jonathan" — a film about Jonathan Winters starring Jonathan Winters, with a stellar comedy cast that includes the likes of Robin Williams, Tim Conway and Sarah Silverman. On the higher-budget side, Dominic announced to fans at a Sacramento convention last September that he had been cast in the fourth "Species" movie. He shot that in October in Mexico, playing an Australian scientist named "Forbes McGuire."

And this November you will see him — sort of — in Robert Zemeckis' performance-capture rendering of the classic epic poem "Beowulf" (using the same digital process as "The Polar Express"). Dominic plays "Old Cain," the brother-killer of Biblical lore, in a cast that includes Angelina Jolie and Sir Anthony Hopkins.

To see Dominic in person, catch him at Creation Entertainment's Philadelphia-area Star Trek convention July 20, as well as Creation's giant Las Vegas show in August; he's tentatively scheduled to appear Friday the 10th.

STARTREK.COM would like to wish Dominic Keating a very Happy Birthday and many thanks for all his hard work on Enterprise and his generous support of this site.

Click here to post your own birthday greeting for Dominic!