Actor Leon Vitali, best remembered for his work with Oscar-winning filmmaker Stanley Kubrick, has gone away. A verified Twitter account for Kubrick’s public relations team shared the news of Vitali’s passing. When Vitali passed away, he was 74 years old.
According to the tweet, Vitali went away in his sleep on August 20. Unfortunately, the details surrounding his untimely demise remain sketchy. We regret to inform you that Leon Vitali, a constant presence in many of Kubrick’s works, passed away yesterday night,” stated the tweet. The statement ended, “Our sympathies are with his family and those who knew and loved him.”
In 2018, after the publication of Filmworker, Tony Zierra’s documentary about Vitali’s career as an actor who finally gave up performing to focus on working behind the scenes with Kubrick, Vitali went into de facto retirement. His final acting job was as the Apothecary in Carlo Carlei’s 2013 Rome & Juliet, a retelling of the renowned William Shakespeare story.
Kubrick was an unusual whiz at the craft of filmmaking, and his films are often cited as groundbreakers due to the meticulous care with which he approached each one. Kubrick and Vitali first met on the set of the 1975 period drama Barry London, and the latter would go on to become a vital ally to the director. And in his third acting job, Vitali played Lord Bullingdon.
During production, Vitali was so impressed by Kubrick’s innovative filmmaking techniques that he volunteered to forego a career in acting in favour of working for free for the director. The mutual respect blossomed into an off-screen bromance that lasted for the remainder of Kubrick’s life. After Barry London, their first significant project was the 1980 psychological horror thriller The Shining. Kubrick invited Vitali to work with him on the project before production began by sending him a copy of the Stephen King novel the film is based on. The Shining, starring Jack Nicholson, was widely recognised as one of the finest horror films ever produced despite garnering terrible reviews upon its first release. Kubrick and Vitali were, without a doubt, much ahead of their time. On the film’s credits, Vitali was listed as the director’s “personal assistant.”
After working on Full Metal Jacket together, Kubrick also cast Vitali in the part of Red Cloak in Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut. With the later picture starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, Kubrick completed his filmography before his untimely death in March 1999, at the age of 70. Even after Kubrick’s death, Vitali was always faithful to him, working to restore several of his films. In addition to his collaborations with Kubrick, Vitali has also worked on the films In the Bedroom (2001) and Little Children (2001) with director Todd Field (2006).
Warwickshire-born Vitali began his career with small roles in British television shows including Softly, Softly, Follyfoot, and Roads to Freedom shortly after graduating from the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. After meeting on the set of Calvin Floyd’s Terror of Frankenstein, Leon Vitali went on to marry Kersti and have three children, two of whom went on to pursue careers in the entertainment industry: Vera Vitali, an actress, and Max Vitali, a videographer. His movie-producing daughter, Masha Vitali, is from a previous marriage. Our deepest sympathies are with Vitali’s loved ones at this difficult time.