Producer, Actor & Stanley Kubrick's long-time associate and assistant
Guest for The Shining
Born and raised in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, England, he left school age 17 and gained admission to the LONDON ACADEMY OF MUSIC AND DRAMATIC ART at age 18.
He studied there for 21/2 years focusing on classical, modern and improvisational drama as an actor while also extensively studying script analysis and stage management.
He graduated in 1970.
He then worked for 6 years as a professional actor, working extensively on stage, in television and cinema during this time
His film appearances included most notably ‘BARRY LYNDON’ (as ‘Lord Bullingdon’), the winner of 4 Oscars starring Ryan O’Neil and Marisa Berenson which was directed and produced by Stanley Kubrick, as well as playing a supporting role in the 4 Emmy winning film ‘CATHOLICS’, directed by Jack Gold and starring Trevor Howard, Cyril Cusack, Martin Sheen and Michael Gambon.
It was during the shooting of ‘BARRY LYNDON’ though that gave him his interest in all areas of film production, aided by Kubrick’s generosity in allowing him to spend time on set even when not shooting; a privilege not normally extended by Kubrick.
Leon Vitali then negotiated a contract to play the lead in a film called ‘Victor Frankenstein’ and to continue working in post-production in the cutting room thereafter following the process through to final release in 1976.
It was then that Kubrick came back into the picture by asking him to travel to Denver, Chicago and Kansas City, Ms. To find a boy to play Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duval’s son, Danny in ‘The Shining’.
He auditioned 4,000 children for the role and found young Danny Lloyd – then just 4 years old, to play the role. He auditioned using improvisation linked to specific ‘plot-points’ in the story itself.
Stanley then put Leon to work coaching Danny throughout the filming alongside other actors in the movie and also gave Vitali the task of casting some minor rolls. He also worked as an assistant to John Alcott during 3 months of production acting as a liason between the director and the DOP.
Vitali also fulfilled other functions as Kubrick’s assistant until the end of production.
Vitali also did some work on ‘foots and foley’ and was given the task of checking out some cinemas prior to release.
For ‘FULL METAL JACKET’, Kubrick has Vitali work to cast the whole film with the exception of Matthew Modine who played the starring role of ‘Joker’ as well as dialogue coach to the whole cast and also duties in the cutting room (including syncing and numbering rushes). Along with Edward Tise, mixer on the film and one of the sound editors Vitali was responsible for all the ‘foots and folies’ on that film as well as run the cutting room itself. At this time he started working with the laboratories and video transfer houses and also started interfacing for Kubrick with the Warner Bros. Studios and all the Warner Bros offices world-wide, collecting box office figures along with working on marketing strategies with Kubrick and Julian Senior, Kubrick’s trusted collaborator at Warner Bros.
Kubrick extended Vitali’s brief to working on all strategies for theatrical and video releases of not only ‘FULL METAL JACKET’ but all of Stanley’s previous films theatrically and on video (his films always being in demand around the world) which included budgeting, layouts for posters, video wraps, magazine and newspaper ads and all ‘point-of-sale’ material (mobiles, standees etc). Another task was to organize and supervise all translations of the film in all dubbed and subtitle versions – something Vitali subsequently did for all of Kubrick’s films whether released theatrically or on video, laser disc or DVD.
For ‘EYES WIDE SHUT’, he worked in ALL areas of pre-production, production and post-production’, inter-facing again with the Warner Bros. Studio executives, production staff etc as well as all the casting (with the exception of TOM CRUISE and NICOLE KIDMAN), dialogue and script development, dialogue coaching, all the lab work as well as, upon Kubrick’s request, acting the in the role of ‘RED CLOAK’, the ‘MC’ and ‘Interrogator’ in the ‘Masked Ball’ sequence.
Kubrick also began to slowly introduce Vitali into basic contract negotiations in much the same way as he had introduced Vitali into casting and lab work in previous productions.
After Kubrick’s untimely death in March 1999, he supervised and helped negotiate all laboratory work (he organized a team of 5 to physically check 1 in 5 of every print of the film (resulting in a return rate of only 14 out of over 36,000 reels from the USA release) and worked closely on all the foreign territories’ release pattern.
He also supervised all trailering production, all TV spot production etc along with organizing translations from all territories (except for France and Germany).
Finally, briefed by Kubrick before his death, Vitali oversaw the restoration of all of Kubrick’s canon from ‘Lolita’ through to and including ‘Full Metal Jacket’, (Vitali had already supervised the transfer of ‘Eyes Wide Shut’) including the mending of the original camera negatives where applicable, making new Intermediate elements (Interpositives and Internegatives) for future release theatrically and for the new, digital DVD market along with supervising the re-mastering of all soundtracks, where applicable, into 5.1 quad tracks.
It must be pointed out that he acknowledges the help and cooperation of many people to do all the above work, the majority of them at the ‘top of their tree’ professionally but who extended openness to Vitali throughout the work in a spirit of true cooperation
These people included NED PRICE of Warner Bros and his staff, WARREN LIEBERFARB and BRIAN JAMIESON of Warner Home Video, YAN YARBORO and his staff at Warner Bros. technical Operations, CHRIS JENKINS (then at Todd AO) and his staff, along with invaluable contributions of NIGEL GALT (long time friend and associate who also worked on ‘Full Metal Jacket and Eyes Wide Shut as editor), YCM LABORATORIES of Burbank along with many other people - too many to mention, but to whom Vitali will always extend his gratitude.
In 2003, Vitali moved permanently to Los Angeles to work with TODD FIELD as a production partner with STANDARD FILM COMPANY’.
He read and proposed the story ‘LITTLE CHILDREN’ to be their first production.
Vitali was an ASSOCIATE PRODUCER on this project and it went on to receive
3 GOLDEN GLOBE’ and 3 OSCAR NOMINATIONS.
