John Spencer (December 20, 1946 – December 16, 2005) was an American actor. He won an Emmy Award in 2002 for his role as White House Chief of Staff Leo McGarry on the NBC political drama series The West Wing. Spencer was born John Speshock, Jr. in New York City and raised in Totowa, New Jersey. He was the son of blue-collar parents Mildred (née Bincarowski), a waitress, and John Speshock Sr., a truck driver. Spencer was of Irish and Ukrainian-Rusyn descent. 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.
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