George Spartels: Difference between revisions

Australian actor

George Bernard Spartels (born 25 April 1954)^[1] is an Australian actor, presenter, director, playwright and children’s musician. He remains best known for his role on the television soap opera Neighbours^[1] and as a presenter on Play School.^[2]

Spartels was born to a father of Greek descent and a mother of English and Irish descent.^[1]

Spartels has guest starred in many Australian television series from the 1970s to the present, most notably, Prisoner and Bellbird and in long-running soap opera Neighbours in which he played the role of family patriarch Benito Alessi.^[1] He has also appeared in a number of episodes of medical drama series All Saints^[1] and serial Packed to the Rafters as Carbo’s father.

Other roles included Cop Shop, Punishment and The Bluestone Boys, as well as Blackfinger in the movie Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome in 1985, alongside Mel Gibson and Tina Turner.

Spartels was also a children’s television presenter, having had a long tenure on ABC’s Play School, over a period of 16 years between 1985 and 2001. He also performed live in 2009 with Play School touring concerts.^{[1][3][4][5][6]}

In 2014, Spartels toured Canada, the United States and Australia in a stage production of The Last Confession with David Suchet.^[7]

Spartels’ photoportrait, by Ivan Gaal, is in the permanent collection of the National Portrait Gallery.^[8]

Spartels was married to Sue. He then married actress Elizabeth Alexander in 1984 with whom they have two daughters, both of whom appear in the music video for his single Busy Baby Bubby. George and Elizabeth divorced in 2006. George married for a third time to Mary in April 2013 where they resided in Sydney. They would divorce in 2017. Afterwards, Spartels returned to Melbourne and commutes elsewhere.