John Spencer (actor)

Early life

John Spencer was born John Speshock, Jr. on December 20, 1946 in New York City, and was raised in Totowa, New Jersey. He was the son of blue-collar parents Mildred (née Benzeroski), a waitress, and John Speshock Sr., a truck driver. Spencer's father was of Irish and Czech descent, while his mother was of Ukrainian and Rusyn ancestry. With his enrollment at the Professional Children's School in Manhattan in 1963, Spencer found himself sharing classes with such fellow students as Liza Minnelli and violinist Pinchas Zukerman. He attended Fairleigh Dickinson University, but did not complete a degree. Spencer often referred to himself as a "dyed-in-the-wool liberal" and described Franklin Delano Roosevelt as one of his heroes.

Career

Spencer began his television career on The Patty Duke Show, and eventually began appearing in supporting roles in feature films commencing with 1983's WarGames. He won an Obie Award for the 1981 off Broadway production of Still Life, about a Vietnam War veteran, and received a Drama Desk nomination for The Day Room. In 1986 he appeared on Broadway as Dan White, the killer of Harvey Milk, in Execution of Justice, alongside Stanley Tucci and Wesley Snipes. Spencer became a full-fledged supporting actor with the hit 1990 courtroom thriller Presumed Innocent portraying a tough, veteran homicide detective, starring opposite Harrison Ford. The same year, Spencer joined the cast of the television series L.A. Law, playing rumpled, pugnacious, street-wise trial attorney Tommy Mullaney. Spencer's work also extended to video games, portraying the role of Captain Hugh Paulsen in the 1995 video game Wing Commander IV: The Price of Freedom. Spencer's subsequent film and television work primarily consisted of supporting roles such as a colleague and friend to Billy Crystal's basketball ref in Forget Paris and a prickly FBI official in Michael Bay's film The Rock.

In 1999, Spencer was cast as White House Chief of Staff Leo McGarry on the NBC political drama series The West Wing. Spencer's character was a senior staff consultant to the fictional U.S. President Josiah Bartlet. Both McGarry and Spencer were recovering alcoholics. Spencer's role on the show eventually earned him a Primetime Emmy Award in 2002, after being judged on the show's third season episodes "Bartlet for America" and "We Killed Yamamoto".

Death

Spencer died of a heart attack in a Los Angeles hospital on December 16, 2005, four days before his 59th birthday. He was survived by his partner, Patricia Mariano. At Spencer's private funeral, his West Wing castmate, Kristin Chenoweth, sang the musical number "For Good" from the Broadway musical Wicked. Spencer's remains were interred at Laurel Grove Memorial Park in his hometown of Totowa, New Jersey.

At the time of his death, Spencer had filmed two of the five West Wing episodes that were in post-production: "Running Mates" and "The Cold". Spencer's death was later written into the show's seventh and final season, in which McGarry was said to have died of a heart attack on election night. Spencer's name remained in the opening credits throughout the remainder of the show. A tribute to Spencer, read by the show's lead star, Martin Sheen, was delivered at the start of the tenth episode of the final season.