THIRTY-THREE
GONE
There were a lot of good days on The West Wing…Looking back, armed with a perspective that only time can offer, you could say that, when it came to The West Wing, there was only one truly bad day.
December 16, 2005
BRADLEY WHITFORD: I got a call from my assistant—I was at my kid’s school—John had had a heart attack and was at this hospital in West LA. I jumped in the car. I got there and went up. The door was closed and the nurse said, “He’s in there. Some friends of yours are in with him, but…he’s gone.” I went in, and Stockard was standing there with John’s friend, the director Lee Rose.
LEE ROSE: I walk in the room and John’s assistant Kim is there…his friend Stephen is there…and Johnny is dead. I called Stockard and said, “You need to come to the hospital.”
STEPHEN PFEIFFER: Stockard immediately stopped filming and came over.
STOCKARD CHANNING: I went to the hospital…but I got there too late.
BRADLEY WHITFORD: He was gone. And I’m suddenly in a room with everybody. There was some concern about reporters finding out. We wanted to protect him. So we were with him for many hours. There were a lot of tears; tears alternated with dark humor.
ALLISON JANNEY: I was in a restaurant, I’d just finished lunch with a friend. I couldn’t believe my ears. “Gone.” I was stunned. There is no “ready” for a moment like that. I got in my car and headed over. I stayed there in John’s hospital room with Brad and Stockard and Lee for quite a while. It was such a sad, strange time…
STOCKARD CHANNING: I had to call Martin’s manager—I didn’t have Martin’s number with me.
MARTIN SHEEN: Oh God, I lost a brother. I absolutely adored him.
JANEL MOLONEY: I’d just walked out of my parents’ house, I was in the car, still in the driveway, when Brad called. “I have bad news. John Spencer died.”
MELISSA: I was in Santa Monica, in the living room of my apartment, when Janel called. “Hi, Missy. Are you sitting down?” When I told her I wasn’t, she said, “Can you be?” So I walked over to the sofa. “Okay. I’m sitting down.” She told me flat out. “John Spencer died.” I was stunned. (And glad I was sitting.) All I could think—all I could say—was…“No. No.”
RICHARD SCHIFF: I was doing a play in New Jersey. Brad called to tell me John was gone.
DULÉ HILL: I was at my house in Woodland Hills. I pick up the phone, “Hey, Brad, what’s happening?” He said, “I’m sorry to tell you this, but…Johnny’s gone.” It took me a minute to grasp what he was talking about. It just didn’t make sense. Finally, somewhere in that pause, I realized that he was talking about John Spencer. I said, “Oh, my God…”
MARY: We were back east for the holidays in New York. I was holding Margaret—and decorating the tree with Michael and my mom—when Brad called. I was happy to hear from him for about five seconds, and then he just…said it. I was genuinely shocked, thunderstruck. You hear something like that and you feel knocked off your mooring, just truly and totally disoriented. The last thing I remember is handing Margaret off to Michael.
LYN PAOLO: I was at the mall shopping for John when I found out that he died. A suit for Leo for the next episode. Can you believe it?
JOSH SINGER: The show was on hiatus for two weeks. I was at LAX, waiting for a flight to Philly, when I got the call. I was stunned.
JIMMY SMITS: I was on the 405, headed south, just over the Sepulveda Pass, coming home from work. I was on the phone talking to John Wells about decisions they were making in the writers room. Suddenly, he had to get off the phone. A few minutes later he called me back to let me know that “Spence” was gone. This had just happened, he didn’t have any details. I pulled over. I was just numb.
BRADLEY WHITFORD: Somebody came into his room and we stepped out as they did what needed to be done. We rode down on the elevator with him on a gurney. Suddenly, we’re standing out on the street. John’s wheeled into a hearse and taken away. You’re just…We were in shock.
MELISSA: A bunch of us—Brad and Stockard and Martin, Lee and Tommy and Aaron, Jimmy Smits, Lyn Paolo, Allison, Janel, Eli Attie, and others—got together at John’s home. We sat around in a circle—on couches, on the floor, in chairs—sharing our memories of him. It was such a long time ago, so much life has happened since, but I still remember it vividly.
STEPHEN PFEIFFER: West Wing was a family with such a strong bond. And that family came to rally.
LYN PAOLO: I remember being in a circle and Martin saying we should all hold hands. He was leading the prayer. He gave such a beautiful speech about John being in a better place. I was devastated—we all were—but I remember thinking, “God, I wish I had his faith.”
ELI ATTIE: It was like a member of the Beatles just died. It just had a feeling of…somehow the whole thing has been broken in some way.
MELISSA: The get-together that night was incredibly raw. It was also…complicated. We felt deeply sad, of course, but in addition to tears and heartbreak there were beautiful stories about John, off set and on, about what made him “John.”
ALLISON JANNEY: It just meant so much to be in John’s home, in his space, being around his…you know…his things. One thing I still remember is being sent home with a painting I was told “John would’ve wanted you to have.” It was by an artist we both loved.
MELISSA: Since the funeral fell around the holidays, I was home with my family in Pennsylvania. Josh Singer, whose parents lived nearby, came over with his dad.
JOSH SINGER: My father, who was always a believer in showing up to these things, offered to drive with me and Melissa to the funeral in New Jersey. I remember it being cold and bleak, and that there was a Catholic Mass, which gave me insight into the world from which John had come.
ELI ATTIE: I had never been to an Irish Catholic wake before. There’s this tradition of the big corkboard of pictures of the whole life and there was something amazing about it. John had a fifty-something character actor’s face as a four-year-old! And you’re watching him grow into his face over the course of this board. This guy you only knew in this one intense, wonderful phase of his life, and you’re seeing him step into his greatness in photographs…
LEE ROSE: At the funeral home, Mary-Louise Parker and I go into the bathroom. Mary-Louise looks up and goes…
MARY-LOUISE PARKER: “Okay, you know what, God, I need a word with you! Your assistant needs an assistant—because you took the wrong guy!”
LEE ROSE: I nearly peed my pants. It was the first time I had laughed since John died. Later that night, Mary-Louise, I think Richard Schiff was there, Bradley, myself—we went to dinner in the Village. Strangers kept walking by, saying, “I’m so sorry.”
KRISTIN CHENOWETH: Two weeks before Christmas, I caught John smoking in the alley. I said, “Gimme that cigarette!” He goes, “Kristin, every day without a cigarette is hell. I just want this one.” I said, “Okay, but no more after this!’’
He said, “I’ll tell you what. If I die, I have one request. I want you to sing ‘For Good’ at my funeral.” I laughed. “Well, that won’t be for a while.” And then he passed away.
PETER ROTH: He passed away so suddenly. We were all so shocked. I remember Aaron asking me if they could use the Stephen Ross Theater at Warner Bros. to have a memorial service, which I was thrilled and honored to be able to do.
RON OSTROW: The theater was packed. That tells you something about how people felt.
LEE ROSE: Everyone got up and spoke. Stockard spoke, Marty, Aaron, Tommy, Brad. And Jimmy Smits because they’d been on L.A. Law together too. Mary McDonnell spoke too, and some people Spencer had done theater with. It was beautiful.
KRISTIN CHENOWETH: I didn’t think I could do it. Then I felt him, I felt John say…“You’re gonna do this because I asked you to, just the other day!” So…I did. And it was horrible. I sounded like a frog. But the important thing is…he loved that song, loved the message: “Because I knew you, I have been changed…for good.”
ALLISON JANNEY: What I remember most from the Warner Bros. memorial is that Kristin sang “For Good” so, so beautifully.
PETER ROTH: I was really weeping. Because it wasn’t simply Kristin’s relationship with John, it was everyone’s relationship with John.
America has lost a giant tonight. And I’ve lost a friend.
—MATT SANTOS, “ELECTION DAY: PART II”
Bradley Whitford’s Eulogy
First of all, John would be pissed off that his memorial today is actually a forced call on what will be a full day of shooting. I met John Spencer when a teamster picked me up to go to the read-thru of the first big movie I ever got, Presumed Innocent, in New York in 1989. I had a small part, but John’s was substantial. He was practically curled up in the back seat of the van and he was terrified. You could see it. When I asked him if he was okay, he said he wasn’t sure. This part was the biggest break of his career. And it would be the first time in his professional life that he had ever tried to act sober.
Walking up Broadway with him after the table read, he was giddy. It had gone well. He could do it without the booze. And as he pointed out a Blarney Stone he used to black out in, he told me that acting was going to save him.
And he was right. John held on to acting for dear life. He reveled in it, built his life in service of it, treated each opportunity to do it as a privilege to be prepared for and executed with the care of a Japanese tea ceremony. Lines had to be down cold, the props just so. Like any good actor he was trying to get to the place where he could relax, just be the guy, and maybe let a little crazy out. Let’s face it, working on a one-hour television show for this long involves a crushing level of intimacy.
The good news is that we all have a job. The bad news is that the overexposure to each other required to make a television show means that we will inevitably end up walking around together in nothing but our emotional underwear. We are with each other from the puffy dawn to the gaunt night. We fail in front of each other. We get mad at each other. We laugh with each other. We keep each other going. We all know, and I’m not just talking about the actors here, we all know that we will be revealed to each other. It is a place with all of the nourishment and all of the horror of a family.
Add the medieval caste system that is show business, the wacky financial stakes, the emotional carnage of being overvalued and undervalued (often on the same day)…and you have, well, you have stage 23 here at Warner Bros. Studios. (By the way, there is no question that we could be making a far more interesting show than the one we are all so proud of being a part of. But the camera is pointed the wrong way.) So when we say we have lost a brother, we mean it literally.
I wish John could have known the horrible loss we feel at his passing. I wish he could have heard the voices of countless strangers who tell me how they feel like they have lost a friend. They feel like they knew him, and it is a testament to his acting and his decency that they actually did. He brought it all to Leo. He was vulnerable, he was a bull, he was funny, he could scare the hell out of you, he was on fire, he was held back, he was revealing, he was hidden. He had seen it all, and it hadn’t been pretty. But there was still something funny about it.
John was great to imitate. His body was evidence of the punishing mileage he had racked up and of the strength, optimism and the raw defiance necessary to get the thing going.
Everyone knows that John didn’t have a face. He had a mug. It was an unlikely combination of a comedy mask and an old catcher’s mitt: hugely theatrical yet somehow honest, familiar, and broken-in at the same time. His default expression was a smile. When he laughed his mouth flew open so wide that he was blinded by his ample eyelids and eyebags, like a boxer in need of a cut-man.
And his legs were impossible. It didn’t make sense that they worked at all. They were bowed like a couple of Irish harps that were strung way too tight. But he got them going with a roly-poly hot coal walk-with-a-wince that only made sense once he hit his signature cruising speed. In those crappy flip-flops that Betty was always slipping on him. When John told me he was going to have surgery on his legs next summer, I remember thinking, thank god. Finally. What ocean of denial did you have to be swimming in to think those unsnapped vaulting poles were ever a viable means of transportation? But of course he was going to wait till hiatus. He needed them to get him to work.
I love you, John. Thank you, my friend. I will never forget you.
Richard Schiff’s Eulogy
To John from Richard.
I am a great actor! You can laugh if you want…for seven years John Spencer has been trying to convince me—to get me to say out loud, “I am a great actor.” And so, to honor John, I have said it. For those of you who know me, you know how ridiculously impossible that is for me to say. Never mind that I still think I suck. That’s not the point.
John Spencer came at you with love like Joe Frazier came at Muhammad Ali with fists. Think about it. John Spencer would come at you, short and powerful, forehead first with fiery eyes and loading the left hook with compliments and adoration and admiration, respect and absolute and pure love. And throw them at you with ferocity and determination and grit and he would not let up, no matter how you ducked, bobbed, weaved and side-stepped. And, sure enough, he’d catch you with that hook and buckle your knees.
He had the spirit of the boxer, you see. He was a fighter. He fought his demons that way and day in and day out he was triumphant over them. Batting them down as they popped up like so many Jack-in-the-boxes, trying to divert his focus, his drive, his will to be the best human being he could be. And his great weapon was acting. He loved acting like no one I’ve ever met. He loved the make-up, the robe, the slippers, the trailers, the prizes, the gossip. He ate it, and dreamt it, drank it, devoured it like steak. And to do it right he kept those demons nearby, allowing them life to live through his acting and so always walked that dangerous, courageous line—the line only great actors and artists must tread on. And John Spencer was a great actor.
I was doing a scene in the Oval Office on The West Wing. A tough scene. John was doing the Warren Leight play at the Taper and had to leave the set by five PM every day to make his show. So he was shot out first. All day long I was doing this very hard scene and all day it was going well, alive in the moments. When I was being shot, I expected it to go just as well. But John had left for the play and when I looked over to his chair where he had been sitting all day, the scene suddenly stopped. Someone had replaced John in his chair and the scene stopped. You see? And I realized that all day in my glances over to John I had received this great gift. One look from Leo and I had been filled with substance, with purpose, with clarity. And now with John gone, I was empty. And the scene stopped. The play was over. And I had to start again by myself and I hated it. I told him that the next day. I thanked him for his great gift to us; his generosity, his presence. John was always there for us—off camera, giving, constantly and totally and forever giving.
I am not present at the memorial because I am doing a one-man show in New Jersey, of all places. When I told everyone of this choice to do this play I was greeted with such remarks as: “Are you out of your mind?” “Why on Earth are you doing THAT!?” But John responded with, “Oh that’s great!” “It’s going to be so great for you,” “What’s the play?” “You’re going to kill them!” and so on and on. And so each and every day as I wait, terrified, in the wings to embark on this wild expedition on stage, I talk to John. And I thank him for his faith in me. And I think: “If John were back here, as fearful and shaking as I am, he would smack down those demons and put the proverbial mouthguard between his clenching teeth and tear out on that stage and conquer all.” And so I thank him every night. I thank him for all that he has given us and will keep giving us.
At his funeral in New Jersey, I watched his friends and family and the other Catholics present reach over and touch his casket to say goodbye. And so I did as well. I felt a rush, an electric surge coming through my hand from his casket. I was reaching out and touching him to say goodbye. I had missed the chance in Los Angeles. Some believe that the soul stays around for a couple of days before it embarks on the next journey, wherever that is. Well, John had stuck around, I think. To say goodbye back to us. And wouldn’t it be just like him; one last act of generosity to let us say goodbye. To stick around for a little, just a bit more, conversation and companionship. To chat about the things in this world one more time.
What’s the greatest thing you can say about someone? That without them you would not be who you are. John Spencer has changed my life for knowing him. And I will always love him for it.
And so with severely buckled knees, lying flat on my back on the canvas, in fact. I say this for you John: “I am a great actor.” And one day, maybe one day, if I keep talking to you, keep listening to you, I’ll be, just maybe, as great as you.
In talking to the cast and crew about John, we came away with, frankly, what we’d envisioned and hoped for: memories and anecdotes about the wonderful actor—the wonderful man—behind the wonderful Leo McGarry. What we didn’t bank on—though, in retrospect, we should have—was the spectrum of affectionate John Spencer imitations. These attempts at his sly, winky, gravelly-voiced intonations are, of course, not exactly translatable on the page. You’ll just have to trust us. They are undeniably charming, oddly moving, and hilariously terrible. (There are so many bad ones, it’s hard to choose. We’ll go with Malina. Honestly—all of a sudden Spencer’s a pirate?!)
Here, now, is just a smattering of cast and crew impressions—and, you know, impressions—of the late, great John Spencer. Gone too soon, but never forgotten.
Melissa Fitzgerald (Carol Fitzpatrick)
The West Wing aired at nine o’clock every Wednesday night. On Thursdays John would make the rounds to tell everybody about something they had done in the episode, then talk about it, dissect it. He would just find that teeny-tiny moment. And, look, I didn’t have a whole lot of moments on that show. But if I had one, even if I didn’t have a line, he’d note it and talk to me about it. I saw him doing that with everybody, no matter how big or small their part was. I was so touched by that. I’d tell him, “John, my mom wouldn’t have even noticed that moment!” He saw the littlest things. And the biggest things. I loved Thursdays.
Dulé Hill (Charlie Young)
We were in DC, filming, and we were given a motorcade. The park police were there. We’re in this white van and they’re doing their whole thing like when the motorcade comes through, how they clear a path for the president. And we’re all like, “This is cool, can you believe this?!” That would always be Johnny. He would look at me—I can see it now—with a huge smile on his face: “You wouldn’t get this if you were on a cop show!”
Emily Procter (Ainsley Hayes)
Walking down the hall for her first-ever West Wing scene, Emily Procter overheard John Spencer shout to Tommy Schlamme—this is how she put it to us, accent included—“Hey, Tahmmy, if the new girl doesn’t work out, we don’t have to keep her, right?!”
EMILY PROCTER: And Tommy’s like, “Yeah—of course, John.” I’m walking onto the set. I was like…in the room. And then we rehearsed the scene. (Afterwards, he said I could stay.)
From that mischievous moment of Spencer razzing the new kid, John and Emily enjoyed what she calls “this really special relationship.”
EMILY PROCTER: One time, early on, he called me on the phone. “Uh, Emily, it’s Jahn. Jahn Spensuh.” You know I’m not doing his accent right. [She really wasn’t. And it was hilarious, God bless her.] And I was like, “Yes, John, how can I help you?”
“I’m wondering if you want to come over. Come have breakfast with me.”
We had bagels and orange juice. It was lovely. And then he was like, “Let’s run our scene for next week!”
But Emily didn’t have her script. That didn’t stop John, though. He handed her a copy he’d printed. There was—she could tell—a method to his madness.
EMILY PROCTER: John had this pool that took up a huge part of his backyard and he had all of these roses—John loved roses—that were still in pots. He put a couple of pots by the water and a coiled-up hose and he made an obstacle course with all this garden equipment! We had to weave in and out and do the scene and go close to the water. And time it.
Emily quickly realized this wasn’t just a fun, creative acting exercise, this was John taking a new kid under his wing, getting her ready to fly. (And walk-and-talk.)
EMILY PROCTER: He said, “I want you to know, it’s gonna go very fast.” My scenes before that had been just standing in his office and he knew I was going to have to do movement. I don’t know that he got anything out of it. I think it was all for me, it was all a gift.
Mike Hissrich (Producer)
I had worked with John Wells on a series that was set in New York. Trinity. John played this soft-spoken Irish father. When he was cast as Leo, I expected a similar sort of soft-spoken character. What I always remember is that scene in “A Proportional Response” where Leo dresses Bartlet down with that speech. The Charlemagne speech.
My friend, if you want to start using American military strength as the Arm of the Lord, you can do that. We’re the only superpower left. You can conquer the world, like Charlemagne. But you better be prepared to kill everyone. And you better start with me. ’Cause I will raise up an army against you, and I will beat you!
—LEO TO PRESIDENT BARTLET, “A PROPORTIONAL RESPONSE”
That was something I hadn’t seen from John before. I got chills when we shot it. That scene in Leo’s office was a clash of two titans…waiting to see which one blinked. It was Shakespearean. I remember thinking, “Wow, John has that in his toolbox, too.”
Anna Deavere Smith (National Security Advisor Nancy McNally)
John was very serious about his work. But he also had a sensitivity, a fragility. He was no-nonsense, but there was a kind of vulnerability in his work that I think is wonderful. It’s really useful for an actor, especially a male actor, to have.
Michael O’Neill (Secret Service Agent Ron Butterfield)
I had done a play and a couple films with John in New York. So, I got to know him through work. My first day on the West Wing set, he took me by the hand, and vouched for me. He introduced me to everybody…basically saying, “He’s one of us.” I’ll forever be in his debt for that.
Dave Chameides (Steadicam Operator)
John always had those Tea Tree toothpicks on him, always had a box. The minute he came in the door, he would come up to me because he knew I liked them. He would open it like a cigarette box, he would flip it, and just one would come to the top and I’d take it and he would smile at me. He must have gone through a box a day.
Allison Janney (C.J. Cregg)
I loved his work ethic and his professionalism. When he arrived on the set he wanted to work. He didn’t like the pranks, didn’t like to screw around, just…“Let’s do our job.” He just loved acting, and he loved actors, he loved all of us. Especially Stockard. Stockard and John became very good friends. I loved their friendship, loved them hanging out in his trailer.
Mindy Kanaskie (Co-Producer)
John and Stockard had an old theater friendship. They were East Coasters who knew each other’s secrets and history. There was a different kind of deeper love with them.
Lawrence O’Donnell (Writer, Executive Producer, Dr. Bartlet)
John did a play in LA called Glimmer, Glimmer and Shine. I think there’s maybe two other people in the cast, but it feels like a one-man show because John’s on that stage…holding the stage in a way I’ve never seen before in theater. I sat there watching this, overjoyed and surprised…and a little bit embarrassed to discover that on The West Wing we were using one percent of John Spencer. It made me retroactively understand those read-throughs. I felt that there was this Rolls-Royce engine humming along in that room. He was a Rolls-Royce of an actor. When you see him do that walk-and-talk, like the one at the beginning of the pilot—if you saw that after seeing him do Glimmer, Glimmer and Shine, you’d go, “Well, yeah, no kidding.”
Allison Smith (Leo’s Daughter, Mallory)
John Spencer was the consummate actor, but even more…a consummate friend. There wasn’t a day that went by that he didn’t hug me on set. I can see him now: Leo in a suit, striding right over, arms wide. I never had a dad of my own. I borrowed Mallory’s.
In 2001, I took over John’s dressing room at The Mark Taper Forum after Glimmer, Glimmer and Shine to do QED, a play by Peter Parnell. On opening night, John left me a note:
To my Mallory,
Theatre and roses,
Dad
Stockard Channing (Abigail Bartlet)
Sets are all about the downtime and who you’re talking to. John just became one of these people who you’re sitting there with, and someone says, “You’re wanted on set” and you go, “We’re still talking!” That friendship, it just clicked from day one. It deepened into one of the most profound relationships in my life. He was just so in love with acting, had such energy and ebullience and he was brilliant and precise…and I miss him to this day.
Christopher Misiano (Director, Executive Producer)
When Spencer died, I inherited some West Wing scripts he had in his house. They were marked up with all these slashes and little notations—the script was scored, almost like a piece of music, to give a sense of rhythm to the lines. When Aaron left and Debora Cahn’s first episode came out, John came running up, grabbed me, and whispered in my ear, “She’s got the rhythm!!” That’s how important it was to him.
Whenever John wanted one more take, he would say, “Hey, ‘Christmas’ ”—that was his nickname for me—“can I have one more for my mother?” I’ve taken that with me. Ever since, I’ll tell an actor, “Hey. Do one for your mother.” And usually they’re the best takes. In those moments, I always think of Johnny.
Rob Lowe (Sam Seaborn)
John Spencer could do more with three words than most actors can do with three scenes. Week in and week out, I would watch him say, “Thank you, Mr. President,” and make it mean five thousand different things. It could mean “I love you” or “I’m angry with you.” “I don’t agree with you” or “I’ll run through a wall for you.”
Eli Attie (Writer, Producer)
In season 3 of the show, “Bartlet for America” aired. There was a screening during crew lunch. I was sitting a row or two behind John and…when the episode ended—when Bartlet made that incredible, magnanimous gesture to Leo—John was just sitting there watching, with tears streaming down his face. Aaron appeared in the aisle and was also tearing up. He just went over to John and hugged him. It was two people who understood that problem, sharing an unspoken conversation about it through that episode of television. It was such an incredible moment because you saw the love that was part of that show, that people expressed toward each other, often through the work. It’s just one of those moments I’ll never forget.
John Amos (Admiral Percy Fitzwallace)
To work with John Spencer was a joy. He was always in the moment, which of course made it easy for me to be equally in the moment. I miss John. I’ve worked with so many actors who felt that they were more important than the role that they were portraying. He was the antithesis of that. He could not lie. There was no lie in the man.
Holli Strickland (Base Camp PA)
One of my favorite West Wing memories is taking a picture—black-and-white—of John. We were shooting a formal scene that day so he’s in a tux—a white shirt and cuff links—and he’s kissing his dog Zoey on the mouth! I was later told by his family that it was the last picture ever taken of John.
Richard Schiff (Toby Ziegler)
John loved every single aspect of acting. And not just the acting. He loved all of it—the costumes…the trailers…the makeup. He’d show up early in the morning in the makeup trailer for a little pampering. He had a whole ritual. He’d just lie back in his chair, and he’d have on those two little eye pads. I wanted to be in and out in two minutes. Meanwhile, John was over there on the other side in his fluffy slippers in a robe with his eye pads and his quadruple caramel whatever on the table…and he’d be gossiping with the makeup people for two or three hours. He just loved the whole thing.
Julie DeJoie (Tommy Schlamme’s Assistant)
My favorite thing about John Spencer was that whatever he did, he did it one hundred percent. When he was acting, he gave everything, every time, to the role and to his fellow actors. When he drank coffee, it was the biggest cup of coffee they made. When he smoked, that cigarette never stood a chance. When he wore cologne, he wore the hell out of that cologne. When you had a conversation with him, you felt like there was no one else in the world. And when you made him laugh that enormous laugh, there was no better feeling.
Kim Webster (Ginger)
John Spencer was a Jersey boy. He was no bullshit. He was just the salt of the earth.
Ramón De Ocampo (Otto)
We were doing a long walk-and-talk, and during a little break I was by my trailer, stretching my calf out on the step. John comes up and says, “Lemme show you something.” He walks me into his trailer and goes, “You know what it is?” Digging into his closet, he said, “It’s the shoes.” And he takes out his slippers. His soft, memory-foam, beat-up, comfortable-as-hell slippers. “You can have these, they’re a gift. Wear them on the set. In fact, if you’re not walking so much, they’ll probably let you wear it during the scene.” I remember thinking that that was what this show was—these incredible artists who I looked up to, these giants of the field, giving you slippers to support your feet.
Lyn Paolo (Costume Designer)
John Spencer used to say coming to his wardrobe fittings was his “hourly shrink session of the week.” He would come in and tell me everything that’d happened that week, just bleed it all out. Then he would go, “I feel better now,” and toddle off to the set, leaving the scent of Eau Sauvage behind. I’m not kidding—in the Warner Bros. aisles you can still get a faint whiff of it when you walk past his double-breasted suits. Seriously, they’re still there, and there’s still this faint aroma of John Spencer, and it makes me so happy every time.
Alex Graves (Director, Executive Producer)
In my weepy eulogy of John at one of the celebrations, I said, “I loved John’s face.” I used to come up with shots that I could do to work the topography of his face.
Josh Malina (Will Bailey)
It was my first table read—in the Roosevelt Room. Everyone’s sitting around the big table…the actors, the department heads, the writers, the producers, a lot of people. I remember walking in and feeling really psyched to be there…but it was a daunting room. I remember John Spencer walking up to me and introducing himself: “Hey, how ya doin’? John Spencer! I just loved ya on Sports Night!” I don’t even know if he really watched Sports Night, but that’s not the point. John was that guy who would go out of his way to be warm, to make you feel good, to make you feel like you belonged. I’m sure I’m guilty of not always honoring his memory this way, but I try to do it when I’m a regular on something and not the new guy.
Jimmy Smits (Matt Santos)
John and I did a play together…twenty years before…at the New York Shakespeare Festival. Then we worked together for all those years on L.A. Law. So, when I came to The West Wing…I felt like Spence vetted me for everybody. “He’s okay.” There was a touchstone there. We kind of kept finding each other.
Matthew Del Negro (Bram Howard)
I remember, he had a little scene…like a pass through an office. And they were setting up the lighting, and he was looking around, and he’s looking at the desk, and he goes over and opens this drawer, and he pulls out this pen, and he goes over to [director] Chris Misiano, and he’s, like, “I really think I’d have this in my pocket. Jed gave me this.” He was like a little kid—and this was season 7! He was so into the details, and so excited to be there…
Bradley Whitford (Josh Lyman)
He was wrestling a vicious monster of addiction that he was well aware was always “in the next room,” he would say, “doing push-ups.” There are people who lug the big sack of humanity and self-loathing and failure around with them because it’s part of them. And they have the guts…to hack through the jungle with a dull machete, despite this…They are some of the most beautiful actors on the planet. John was one of those guys.
Andrew Bernstein (First AD, Director)
When I directed one of my first scenes with John, he was alone in Leo’s office, watching a videotape. No dialogue, he puts the tape in and watches this thing on the TV. We started rolling and a practical light in the room started flashing, the bulb started going. So, the [director of photography] starts hitting me, “You gotta say cut, the light’s not working.” Right as John was getting out of his chair, I said, “Cut, cut, cut,” and he storms out to the monitors and starts in on me about how he was gonna get up and fix the light bulb, how “that was something real.” I was like, “I’m sorry, they told me to say cut!” He’s like, “Don’t ever do that, I live for those moments!” To me that was the greatest directing lesson of all time—and one of those things that stays with you forever. John never saw problems, only opportunities. That’s what I miss about him. He allowed magical moments to happen, where light bulbs would flicker and you were allowed to fix it.
Joanna Gleason (Jordon Kendall)
I sat with John for the first time in the congressional hearing scenes in “Bartlet for America.” It was a huge scene with much coverage, and we started talking and talking. For six hours between takes! We had many theater folk in common, but the conversation wandered for miles in every direction. Just before one take, he shared with me that his friend Jessica Lange could kill a cow and butcher it!
William Duffy (Larry)
Whenever he would pay me a compliment, it would mean so much. Every once in a while, we’d finish a scene, he’d look at me and go, “Nice.” (MELISSA: For the record, Duffy’s Spencer impression was quite possibly the best we heard. But don’t sleep on Brad. His is no joke.)
Mary McCormack (Kate Harper)
Acting with John Spencer felt like the scariest privilege. Every time I did it, I got better by degrees. It was like hitting with a tennis pro, I felt him lift my game. My memories of working with John pop with a mix of color and gravity. Rehearsing in fake Camp David or the fictional streets of Havana. Playing CIA dress-up with Leo, trying to lug him into a car. One second he’s playing drunk off his ass, the next—a split second after “cut”—he’s the sweetest gentleman actor you’d ever hope to know. And when you’re treated like a pro by the ultimate pro it instills a confidence in you that feels indelible. I’m a better, more confident actor today because I sat in the Sit Room across from that man.
Peter Roth (Chairman/CEO of Warner Bros. Television, 1999–2021)
I remember that every time I saw John, it was the biggest hug, the warmest response, the most lovely of human beings.
John Wells (Executive Producer, Showrunner)
John Spencer was the heart and soul of the series. The anchor. Both as Leo and as an actor. There wouldn’t have been a West Wing without John. The day he agreed to play Leo was the day I knew the show was going to be a success.
Aaron Sorkin (Creator, Showrunner)
John came from a hardscrabble background, working-class New Jersey. He ran away from home when he was fifteen years old. He mostly played tough guys, even if they were good guys…there was gravel in their voice and a map of the world on their face. He was always the happiest guy on set, he was always bucking everybody up.
He had a habit of making his job look easy, which it definitely wasn’t, but then came “Bartlet for America.” In that episode he would need to reveal that on the day of Bartlet’s final debate with his (unnamed) opponent, Leo had relapsed in his recovery from alcoholism and was passed-out drunk in his hotel room. These are the kinds of memories—nightmares—that live forever in the bones of an alcoholic or addict. The shame is overwhelming.
On the day we were shooting the scene in the hotel suite I could see John was hurting. His performance was fantastic but to me it looked like torture. Tommy likes to shoot a lot of takes and you can’t argue with the results. I’d been giving John his privacy all morning (he didn’t need any notes) but I went to him after the fourth or fifth take and said, “I’m going to ask Tommy to move it along.” John said, “No. It’s my chance for something good to come out of it.” He knew I knew what “it” was and I wanted to give him a speech about how everything good came out of it—you’re here—but he was working.
You ever stop thinking of this as Leo’s office?
—JOSH TO C.J., “TOMORROW”
Martin Sheen (President Josiah Bartlet)
At the mention of John, I laugh. I laugh just thinking of him. Because I did my own makeup, I was always a little ahead. I had a lot of time to waste. I’d go over to the hair-and-makeup trailer just to get ten minutes of gossip with him while he had his hair done. He’d be lying there with his head back, he would have cucumbers on his eyes, and he would be bitching about something and I’d start laughing and laughing. I began to realize he was doing it on purpose, to give me a laugh. I’d say, “Johnny, how you doin’?” I called him Johnny, by the way, no one called him Johnny, I did that just to see if I could get away with it and he never corrected me. “Johnny, how you doin’ today?” (MELISSA: It was at this glorious point that Martin would, for the first of many times, launch into the most committed of the John Spencer imitations we heard during the research for this book.) “Ah, Marty, ya know I am tellin’ ya this…” “Ya know, I said this” or “Aw geez, I cursed her out, I gotta make amends.” If they had taken the word “amends” out of John’s vocabulary, he wouldn’t know what to say.
We were the oldest ones in the cast, both old New York stage players. A couple of old drunks who were now sober, thank God. And we knew we were onto something very special, all the players were so brilliant, so committed. And yet we knew that if we ever came to the set not knowing our lines, or undisciplined or bitching about something, being late…We knew that as long as we kept that discipline, nobody would slack off. So we felt this very real sense of responsibility. It really was like we were the parents.
We had these little signals, looking at each other—a moment, between takes—“Can you believe this? Can you believe what we’re doing?” It was gratitude…an awareness that it’s probably never going to happen again like this in our careers. I adored him. He was such fun. What a wonderful actor and human being. God love him.
It’s Sunday, September 22, 2002. We are in the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles for the 54th Primetime Emmy Awards. John Spencer’s beaming face is framed up with his fellow nominees: Victor Garber, Freddy Rodriguez, Dulé Hill, Richard Schiff, and Bradley Whitford.
The words “and the Emmy goes to…John Spencer!” bring a roar from the crowd, a crowd that is suddenly—instantly—on its feet. Amid thunderous applause, and a “bomb-swell” of Snuffy Walden’s soaring West Wing theme, John pushes himself up out of his seat. On the other end of a back-slap from Dulé, John hugs Martin for a long moment, kisses Allison, then Stockard, and embraces Brad and Richard before dashing up the stairs to the stage—fast, like the moment might somehow slip away. Receiving his Emmy, he takes to the microphone, flashes that incandescent smile of his, and starts to speak:
“I’ve never wanted to do anything but act. It saved my life. It’s the reason I get up in the morning…”