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Leo McGarry
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Leo Thomas McGarry is a fictional character played by John Spencer on the television serial drama The West Wing. The role earned Spencer the 2002 Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series. McGarry's character, the former United States Secretary of Labor, begins the series as the White House Chief of Staff. He is President Josiah Bartlet's best friend and a father figure to the Senior Staff, particularly Deputy Chief of Staff Josh Lyman.
rafting the character of Leo McGarry, series creator Aaron Sorkin says he envisioned John Spencer in the part but had not imagined he would be available.
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Leo Thomas McGarry is a fictional character played by John Spencer on the television serial drama The West Wing. The role earned Spencer the 2002 Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series. McGarry's character, the former United States Secretary of Labor, begins the series as the White House Chief of Staff. He is President Josiah Bartlet's best friend and a father figure to the Senior Staff, particularly Deputy Chief of Staff Josh Lyman.
Creation and development
In crafting the character of Leo McGarry, series creator Aaron Sorkin says he envisioned John Spencer in the part but had not imagined he would be available. Although he had recently decided he did not want to do another TV drama series due to the long hours, Spencer was so impressed by the pilot script that he took the part. Like the character, Spencer was a recovering alcoholic, and said he found he could relate to Leo because "Leo's in recovery, too."
In an earlier draft of the pilot script, dated February 6, 1998, Leo is called "Leo Jacobi" and is described as being aged 55 and "professorial".
Character biography
Leo McGarry is from Chicago, Illinois, and a Catholic, though there seems to be some family connection to (likely one or more of his parents were born in) 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. McGarry is a recovering alcoholic and valium addict. His father was also an alcoholic, who committed suicide.
McGarry is an United States Air Force veteran, having flown a F-105 Thunderchief in the Vietnam War. During the war, he was shot down and wounded. Prior to working in the White House, McGarry had been the 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.
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 won't be attending the State of the Union address, he asks the man if he has a best friend and if that friend is smarter than him. The Cabinet member says yes on both counts, so President Bartlet simply says "That's your chief of staff", not aware Leo has heard him in the next room and broken into a huge smile.
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 would be resigning at the first available opportunity. Minutes after the conversation, McGarry suffered a near fatal heart attack and collapsed 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 Leo 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. Leo was not overly impressive on the campaign trail, because he wasn't familiar with the candidate role, but he pulled off a mini-miracle by doing well in the VP debate after everyone was certain he would be a disaster there.
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 Vinick, but the visibly disgusted Senator tells her that he has been friends with Leo 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 Catholic church, though the funeral was filmed at The Cathedral of Mary Our Queen in Baltimore, Maryland. President Josiah 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.
McGarry appeared in two of the five episodes which had been filmed, but not yet aired, at the time of Spencer's death on December 16, 2005. The show's producers decided to let those episodes air in his memory. The character's death was written in response to the death of the actor, and McGarry is discovered dead in his hotel room offscreen; rumors persist that the election storyline was changed from a Vinick win to the Santos victory we saw in the aftermath of the tragedy. Though he is not seen again onscreen (in flashback or otherwise) after his death, his presence is felt in the series finale when his daughter presents a gift to President Bartlet that she found in Leo's possessions. In the show's final scene, Bartlet opens the gift to find the napkin with the words "Bartlet For America", which McGarry had written to introduce to Bartlet the idea of running for president. Also, when Josh went to see C.J. just before the Santos inauguration during the final episode, Josh asks C.J. if she ever stopped thinking the office of the White House Chief of Staff as Leo's office and C.J. replies "No." Then, C.J. hands Josh (the incoming Chief of Staff), a note with "WWLD?" on it, meaning "What would Leo do?"
Relationship with staff
His role with the White House senior staff is alternately authoritarian, playful, and that of a father figure. He is characterized by the story that he tells Josh Lyman from the second season episode, "Noël":
Spencer described his character's relationship with Josh as a mentoring one, with Leo seeing Josh as a younger version of himself: "a workaholic, a person devoted to government service." He considered the world of The West Wing a boys club at times, and felt Leo could be harder on C. J. Cregg than he was on the male senior staffers.
Reception
Leon Panetta, a former White House Chief of Staff under Bill Clinton and Director of the Central Intelligence Agency under Barack Obama, was impressed by the character, telling actor John Spencer that "Any administration that would have Leo McGarry as a chief of staff would be very, very fortunate." John Podesta, another former chief of staff, has also praised Spencer's performance, saying, "John plays this role in a calm, thoughtful, kindhearted, and loyal manner," although he has commented that Leo is not mean enough.
See also
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