Stanley Kubrick’s longtime colleague Leon Vitali has passed away at the age of 74. Kubrick’s official Twitter account said the following in a tweet: “We must inform you with the utmost sadness that Leon Vitali, a pivotal figure in many of Kubrick’s movies, died away quietly last night. We are thinking of his family and everyone who knew and loved him.”
Actor Leon Vitali passed away
At the age of 74, Leon Vitali passed away. He was most known for working with Stanley Kubrick and making appearances in several of the director’s movies.
‘It is with the greatest of sadness that we have to tell you that the mainstay of a vast number of Kubrick’s films, Leon Vitali, passed away peacefully last night.
Kubrick
It is with the greatest of sadness that we have to tell you that the mainstay of a vast number of Kubrick’s films, Leon Vitali, passed away peacefully last night. Our thoughts are with his family and all that new and loved him.
— Stanley Kubrick (@StanleyKubrick) August 21, 2022
26 July 1948 – 20 August 2022 pic.twitter.com/uE0Q1KvQi1
According to a statement on Kubrick’s official Twitter account, the star, who starred in the films Eyes Wide Shut from 1999 and 1975’s Barry Lyndon, passed away quietly on Saturday night.
Actor Leon Vitali cause of death
Leon Vitali, a friend of Stanley Kubrick’s, passed away at the age of 74. cause of death still unknown.
The Kubrick estate referred to Vitali, who acted in two Kubrick movies and served as the director’s personal assistant, as “the mainstay of a great number of Kubrick’s works” on Sunday (21 August).
Who was Stanley Kubrick collaborator Leon Vitali?
Early in the 1970s, Vitali began his acting career with modest parts in a number of TV blockbusters, including Z Cars, Van der Valk, and Dixon of Dock Green.
Leon Vitali was Stanley Kubrick’s aide de camp and the protector of his work after his death. Do yourself a favor and rent the documentary FILMWORKER to see what it’s like to subsume yourself in someone else’s genius. RIP. pic.twitter.com/Vup3qNGcLs
— Sonny Bunch (@SonnyBunch) August 21, 2022
Following his appearance in Please Sir!, he went on to play the part of Peter Craven in its successor, The Fenn Street Gang, on a regular basis.
He is claimed to have bonded with Stanley Kubrick after being offered the role of Lord Bullingdon in the director’s film Barry Lyndon in 1974.
The movie won four Oscars and was nominated for three more, which is more than any other one of Kubrick’s movies. It is currently far less well-known than A Clockwork Orange, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and The Shining.
It was the beginning of a partnership that would see Vitali serve as Kubrick’s assistant for a number of more movies, including The Shining, Eyes Wide Shut, Full Metal Jacket, and the Oscar- and Golden Globe-nominated Eyes Wide Shut.
Leon Vitali acting career
He also played Red Cloak in Eyes Wide Shut, which was another acting role.
The Kubrick film and legacy were still being worked on by Vitali after the great filmmaker passed away in 1999, according to the 2018 documentary Filmworker about him.
Danny Lloyd, the young star of The Shining, was found and signed on by Vitali to play the part of Danny, Jack Nicholson’s psychic son, and Vitali is credited with preparing Lloyd to give his best performance.
He was credited as casting director for Full Metal Jacket and Eyes Wide Shut, and one of his duties was to take copious notes of Kubrick’s ideas, which he afterwards used to try to make sure people remembered his former boss.
After watching A Clockwork Orange and enjoying the spectacular performances Kubrick acquired from his performers, Vitali claimed that he made the decision to work with Kubrick.
He was alleged to have worked so hard for Kubrick once he had landed the job that his kids later claimed he saw more of the filmmaker than he did of them.
Matthew Modine, who played Leon in the film Full Metal Jacket, once remarked: “What Leon did was a selfless act, a type of crucifixion of himself.”
Leon Vitali movies
The London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art was Vitali’s school of choice. Early in the 1970s, Vitali appeared in several TV shows as a guest star, including Softly, Softly, Follyfoot, Roads to Freedom, Z Cars, Public Eye, The Fenn Street Gang, and Notorious Woman.
In 1973, he appeared in two films for the first time: the television picture Catholics and the Italian Super Bitch, both directed by Massimo Dallamano, who had previously worked as a cameraman on the first two instalments of Sergio Leone’s Dollars Trilogy.
- Super Bitch
- Catholics
- Barry Lyndon
- Eyes Wide Shut
- Romeo & Juliet
Leon Vitali recent projects
Filmworker, a 2017 documentary about Vitali that was produced and directed by Elizabeth Yoffe and Tony Zierra, had its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival and screened at numerous domestic and international film festivals, including the London Film Festival in October 2017.
RIP Leon Vitali pic.twitter.com/goZzFFAb90
— Dan Medeiros (@ManVsTweets) August 21, 2022
Vitali is extensively questioned about his collaboration with Kubrick in Filmworker. On March 7, 2019, Film4 in the UK aired the movie, which was followed by a screening of Kubrick’s The Killing.
Leon Vitali family
In addition to Kubrick’s movies, Vitali also starred as the druggist in Carlo Carlei’s Romeo and Juliet (starring Hailee Steinfeld).
In Calvin Floyd’s rendition of Terror of Frankenstein, he also played Victor Frankenstein.
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On the project, he met his wife Kersti, a costume designer. They had two children together, Vera and Max, before divorcing. Marsha was Vitali’s daughter from a previous union.
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