John Spencer was born John Spechock on December 20, 1946, in Paterson, New Jersey, and was raised in the town of Totowa, close to Paterson. He was an only child to his father, an Irish American, and his mother, a Ukrainian American.

While attending the Manhattan Professional Children’s School he shared classes with two soon to be known stars, Liza Minnelli and violinist Pinchas Zukerman. Although he went on to attend Fairleigh Dickinson University he did not complete his degree course.

The year 1989 saw the start to John Spencer’s big screen appearance when he took a role in Black Rain with Michael Douglas and Andy Garcia. Then in the same year he starred along with several more Hollywood stars such as, Al Pacino, Ellen Barkin, and John Goodman in Sea of Love.

In 1990 he played a sidekick detective to Harrison Ford’s character in the courtroom thriller Presumed Innocent. Prior to his big screen career he had appeared on the television show The Patty Duke Show.

In the 1990s John went on to become a regular member of the L.A. Law cast, which included Corbin Bensen and Harry Hamlin. John played the associate attorney Tommy Mullaney. Later, in 1995, he played opposite Billy Crystal’s basketball referee character in the romantic comedy Forget Paris. After that performance Spencer was cast in the role of Captain Hugh Paulson in the 1995 game Wing Commander IV.

In 1996, John played the FBI Director Womack in The Rock. He also starred in the 2002 theater production of The Exonerated, in which he played a similar character to that which he would later play in The West Wing, a recovering alcoholic and divorce.

During his career Spencer won several awards for his acting prowess, including an Emmy Award in 2002 for his outstanding supporting role in The West Wing and an Obie Award for his earlier appearance in the 1981 off Broadway production, Still Life. His Drama Desk nomination came for his character in The Day Room.

Although his character in The West Wing was based on a Democratic White House chief of staff, he described himself in life as a "dyed in the wool liberal" and spoke of President Franklin D Roosevelt as one of is heroes.

John Spencer was the first character to be cast in The West Wing, and during his time on the show he starred opposite many other greats including, Stockard Channing, Rob Lowe Alan Alda, Mary Louise Parker, Mark Harmon, John Goodman, and Lily Tomlin.

On December 16, 2005, while Stockard Channing was visiting John in a Los Angeles hospital, Spencer had a fatal heart attack. He was just fifty-eight years old and died four days short of his fifty-ninth birthday.

As two episodes of The West Wing were in post production at the time of his death, his character was written out of the show in a following episode, having the White House chief of staff dying of a heart attack on the night of the election. Spencer had appeared in seven of the fourteen episodes that had been filmed.

John Spencer was known for his work in AIDS awareness.

YUDDY