Death
Spencer died of a heart attack in a Los Angeles hospital on December 16, 2005, four days before his 59th birthday. At Spencer's private funeral, his West Wing co-star Kristin Chenoweth sang the musical number "For Good" from the hit Broadway musical Wicked. Spencer's remains were interred at Laurel Grove Memorial Park in his hometown of Totowa, New Jersey. By 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 subsequently written into the show's seventh and final season, when his character, Leo McGarry, died of a heart attack on election night. In a strange twist of fate, McGarry had also suffered a life-threatening heart attack in the show's sixth season episode "The Birnam Wood". Spencer's name remained in the opening credits through the remainder of the show's seventh and final season.
Read more about this topic: John Spencer (actor)
Famous quotes containing the word death:
“Because men really respect only that which was founded of old and has developed slowly, he who wants to live on after his death must take care not only of his posterity but even more of his past.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)