John Spencer (December 20, 1946 – December 16, 2005) was an American film and television actor. He was best known for playing White House Chief of Staff Leo McGarry on the NBC political drama series The West Wing, which earned him an Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series in 2002.

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 Rusyn / Ukrainian 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.

Spencer began his television career on The Patty Duke Show, and eventually began appearing in supporting roles in feature films commencing with 1983's WarGames. He won an Obie Award for the 1981 off Broadway production of Still Life, about a Vietnam War veteran, and received a Drama Desk nomination for "The Day Room." He became a full-fledged supporting actor with the hit 1990 courtroom thriller Presumed Innocent portraying a tough, veteran homicide detective, starring opposite Harrison Ford. The same year, Spencer joined the cast of the television series L.A. Law, playing rumpled, pugnacious, street wise, trial attorney Tommy Mullaney. Spencer's work also extended to video games, portraying the role of Captain Hugh Paulsen in the 1995 video game Wing Commander IV: The Price of Freedom.

John Spencer may refer to:

Ramón Antonio Gerardo Estévez (born August 3, 1940), better known by his stage name Martin Sheen, is an American film actor best known for his performances in the films Badlands (1973), Apocalypse Now (1979), Wall Street (1987), The Departed (2006), his role as The Illusive Man in the Mass Effect trilogy and President Josiah Bartlet in the television series The West Wing.

He is considered one of the best actors never to be nominated for an Academy Award despite his acclaimed performances.^[opinion] In film he has won the Best Actor award at the San Sebastián International Film Festival for his performance as Kit Carruthers in Badlands. His portrayal of Capt. Willard in Apocalypse Now earned a nomination for the BAFTA Award for Best Actor. Sheen has worked with a wide variety of film directors, such as Richard Attenborough, Francis Ford Coppola, Terrence Malick, David Cronenberg, Mike Nichols, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg and Oliver Stone. He has had a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame since 1989. In television he has won both a Golden Globe and two Screen Actors Guild awards for playing the lead role of President Bartlet in The West Wing, and an Emmy for guest acting in the sitcom Murphy Brown.

Octavia Lenora Spencer (born May 25, 1970) is an American actress. She is best known for her role as Minny, the outspoken maid in the 2011 film, The Help, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, among other accolades including the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress, BAFTA for Best Supporting Actress, and Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role.

Born in Montgomery, Alabama, she is the sixth of seven children. Her mother worked as a maid. Spencer graduated from Jefferson Davis High School in 1988, spent two years at Auburn Montgomery studying drama (1988–89), and received a bachelor's degree in Liberal Arts from Auburn University.

At 16, she worked as an intern on the set of The Long Walk Home, a film starring Whoopi Goldberg.

Spencer made her film debut as a nurse in Joel Schumacher's A Time to Kill based on the book by John Grisham. She was originally hired to work on casting, but asked Schumacher if she could audition for a small part. Other film credits include: Never Been Kissed, Big Momma's House, Bad Santa, Spider-Man, Coach Carter, Win a Date with Tad Hamilton! and Pretty Ugly People. She has made a number of guest appearances on a myriad of hit series including: Raising the Bar, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, The Big Bang Theory, Wizards of Waverly Place, NYPD Blue, Grounded for Life, ER, Titus, Becker and Dharma & Greg. However, she is best known for her starring roles as Serenity Johnson on Comedy Central's Halfway Home, and Constance Grady, the amorous INS caseworker on Ugly Betty.

Anna Marie "Patty" Duke (born December 14, 1946) is an American actress of stage, film, and television. First becoming famous as a child star, winning an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress at age 16, and later starring in her eponymous sitcom for three years, she progressed to more mature roles upon playing Neely O'Hara in the 1967 film Valley of the Dolls. She was later elected president of the Screen Actors Guild from 1985 to 1988.

Duke was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 1982; since then she has devoted much of her time to advocating and educating the public on mental health issues.

In 1996, Patty Duke was ranked #40 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time.

Duke was born in Elmhurst, Queens, New York, the daughter of Frances (née McMahon), a cashier, and John Patrick Duke, a handyman and cab driver. Her father was Irish American and her maternal grandmother was German.

Duke and her older brother Raymond experienced a childhood of hard times. Her father was an alcoholic, and her mother suffered from clinical depression and was prone to violence. When Duke was 6, her mother threw her father out; when she was 8, her mother turned Duke's care over to John and Ethel Ross, who became her managers. The Rosses recognized her talent and promoted her as a child actress.