Leo McGarry - Character Biography

Character Biography

Leo McGarry is from Chicago, Illinois born in 1948, though he seems to have some family connection to Boston, Massachusetts. He is of Irish and Scottish ancestry, had at least two sisters, Elizabeth and Josephine, the latter serving as a school district superintendent in Atlanta. He divorces from his wife of several decades, Jenny, in late 2000 as his workaholic attitude is shown to take a toll on his personal life, with McGarry admitting that he considers his job in the White House more important than his marriage. He and his ex-wife have one daughter, Mallory O'Brien, who teaches fourth grade. McGarry is a recovering alcoholic and Valium addict. His father was also an alcoholic, who committed suicide.

McGarry is a United States Air Force veteran, having flown a F-105 Thunderchief with the 355th Tactical Fighter Wing out of Takhli Royal Thai Air Force Base in the Vietnam War. During the war, he was shot down and wounded. Prior to working in the White House, McGarry had been the United States Secretary of Labor during a presidency prior to the beginning of the show. He also speaks fluent Spanish. McGarry has amassed significant wealth during his life in the private sector as a member of the board of directors of a defense contractor, Mueller-Wright Aeronautics, for ten or twelve years. He also worked for Cultico, a chemical-agribusiness firm that was blamed for a disaster in Haryana, India in the 1980s. On more than one occasion, it is made known that he is the wealthiest member of the staff - even more than the President himself.

A lawyer by education, he served as the Secretary of Labor in the early-to-mid-1990s. In 1997, he travels to New Hampshire in an attempt to persuade his old friend Governor Josiah Bartlet to run for the Democratic presidential nomination. Having so persuaded Bartlet, McGarry becomes his campaign manager and General Chairman of the "Bartlet For America" campaign, hiring Josh Lyman, Toby Ziegler, C.J. Cregg, and Sam Seaborn as advisers. Eventually, Governor Bartlet, who was considered to be an insurgent candidate by the media, defeats Senator John Hoynes of Texas for the nomination and goes on to win the presidency, appointing McGarry as his chief of staff.

As President Bartlet's top advisor, McGarry has an office adjacent to the Oval Office and sits in with the president in the Situation Room. McGarry is very involved in the formation of policy and the day-to-day operations of the White House and its staff. Some of his inspirations include "Big Block of Cheese Day" where groups that would normally not be considered for White House attention get to have meetings with senior staffers and a plan to make the staffers submit two-page reports on policy issues or get ignored. On more than one occasion, McGarry is said to be the man who "runs the country", and is treated with great respect by people on both sides of the aisle. When President Bartlet is giving instructions to the one Cabinet member who is appointed the designated survivor during the State of the Union address, he asks the man if he has a best friend, if that friend is smarter than him, and if he could trust that friend with his life. The Cabinet member says yes on all counts, Bartlet then says "That's your chief of staff", not aware McGarry has heard him in the next room and broken into a smile, visibly moved.

In season six, during a Middle East peace negotiation at Camp David, McGarry finds it impossible to support Bartlet's position about sending thousands of American soldiers to the West Bank and Gaza as part of an Israeli-Palestinian agreement, and (in a very tense moment) Bartlet and McGarry come to an agreement that McGarry will resign at the first available opportunity. Minutes after the conversation, McGarry suffers a near fatal heart attack and collapses while walking alone on the grounds. He is resuscitated, survives, and later returns to work after Bartlet's last State of the Union Address in his new role as Senior Counselor to the President. McGarry is succeeded as Chief of Staff by his personal recommendation, C.J. Cregg, who had previously served as the White House Press Secretary.

However, Bartlet asks him to run the Democratic National Convention when it seems likely to deadlock. The Democratic Party's eventual presidential nominee, Congressman Matt Santos selects McGarry as his vice presidential nominee. This is particularly ironic, because McGarry had earlier insisted that Santos drop out of the race for the sake of party unity to allow a less impressive candidate (VP Robert Russell) take on the nod. But McGarry allowed Santos to make a closing speech that was so impressive that it helped put him over the top and become the party's Presidential nominee. McGarry was not overly impressive on the campaign trail, because he wasn't familiar with the candidate role. However he pulled off a trick when he acted like he was terrible at debate, leaked how bad he was through Annabeth Schott's email and then stunned everybody by convincingly winning the Vice Presidential debate.

McGarry's last screen appearance occurs in the episode "The Cold". Following a private meeting between McGarry and Bartlet in the Oval Office to discuss troop deployment in Kazakhstan (a scene which exhibits the unique closeness of their relationship), Josh Lyman asks him: "Everything okay?". McGarry answers with the character's last word on screen, a less than convincing "Yeah."

On Election Night, we hear that McGarry has gone up to his hotel room in Houston to take a nap before the results come in. He collapses in his hotel bathroom after an apparent heart attack. He is found by Annabeth Schott who rushes him to the hospital, where he is pronounced dead. McGarry's death comes ninety minutes before the polls close in California and other western states, thus giving some voters this information prior to casting their vote. A hard-line Republican strategist wants to bring up McGarry's death to benefit the Republican presidential nominee, Senator Arnold Vinick, but the visibly disgusted Senator tells her that he has been friends with McGarry for decades and will do no such thing, win or lose. Despite McGarry's death, the Santos-McGarry ticket narrowly wins the election over the Vinick-Sullivan ticket by a 30,000 vote margin in Nevada and McGarry posthumously becomes the Vice President-Elect after Santos' victory.

McGarry's funeral is held at an unnamed Roman Catholic church, though the funeral was filmed at The Cathedral of Mary Our Queen in Baltimore, Maryland. President Bartlet, President-elect Matt Santos, Josh Lyman, Charlie Young, former DNC head Barry Goodwin, and McGarry's unnamed son-in-law serving as pallbearers. He is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.