Vittorio Giorgio Andre Spinetti was born on 2 September 1929 in Cwm, of Welsh and Italian descent from a grandfather who was said to have 'walked' from Italy to Wales to work as a coal miner, just to earn enough money to buy a plough. His parents, Giuseppe and Lily (nee Watson), owned the chip shop in Cwm, over which premises the family lived and where Spinetti was born. Spinetti was the eldest of six, and his younger brother, Henry (born 1951), is a session drummer. Spinetti was educated at Monmouth School and the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in Cardiff, of which he later became a Fellow.

Spinetti's work in Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop produced many memorable performances including Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'Be (1959, by Frank Norman, with music by Lionel Bart), and Oh! What a Lovely War (1963), which transferred to New York City and for which he won a Tony Award for his main role as an obnoxious Drill Sergeant. He appeared in the West End in The Odd Couple (as Felix); in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang in the West End; and as Albert Einstein in a critically lauded performance in 2005 in a new play, Albert's Boy at the Finborough Theatre. He launched his own one-man show of witty reminiscences, A Very Private Diary, at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. One of Spinetti's most challenging theatre roles was as the principal male character in Jane Arden's radical feminist play Vagina Rex and the Gas Oven, which played to packed houses for six weeks at the Arts Lab on Drury Lane in 1969. In 1980 he directed The Biograph Girl, a musical about the silent film era, at the Phoenix Theatre. In 1986 he appeared as Fagin in the musical Oliver!, which was the last professional production to use Sean Kenny's original stage design. He appeared on Broadway in The Hostage and The Philanthropist, and also acted in 1995 with the Royal Shakespeare Company, in such roles as Lord Foppington in The Relapse and the Archbishop in Richard III, at Stratford-upon-Avon, although this was not a happy experience for him. Spinetti co-authored In His Own Write, the play adapted from a book by John Lennon with the Beatle which he also directed at the National Theatre, premiering on 18 June 1968, at the Old Vic. Spinetti and Lennon appeared together in June 1968 on BBC2's Release. During the interview, Spinetti said of the play, that "it's not really John's childhood, it's all of ours really, isn't it John?" to which Lennon replied, assuming a camp voice, "It is, we're all one Victor, we're all one aren't we. I mean 'what's going on?'" Spinetti described the play as being "about the growing up of any of us; the things that helped us to be more aware". He also directed Jesus Christ Superstar and Hair, including productions staged in Europe. His many television appearances on British TV, include Take My Wife in which he played a London-based booking agent and schemer who was forever promising his comedian client that fame was just around the corner, and the sitcom An Actor's Life For Me. In September 2008 Spinetti reprised his one-man show, A Very Private Diary, touring the UK, as A Very Private Diary ... Revisited!, telling his life story. CANNOTANSWER

any other perfomances?

He also directed Jesus Christ Superstar and Hair, including productions staged in Europe.