George Bernard Spartels (born 25 April 1954) is an Australian actor, presenter, director, playwright and children's musician of Greek descent on his father's ancestry, and English and Irish on his mother's. He remains best known for his role on the television soap opera Neighbours.[1]
Spartels has guest starred in many Australian television series from the 1970s to the present, most notably, Prisoner and Bellbird and in Neighbours playing family patriarch Benito Alessi. He has also appeared in a number of episodes of medical drama series All Saints 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 14 years between 1985 and 1999.[2][3][4][5]
In 2014, Spartels toured Canada, LA and Australia in "The Last Confession" with David Suchet.[6]
Spartels' photoportrait, by Ivan Gaal, is in the permanent collection of the National Portrait Gallery.[7]
Spartels was previously married to Sue Spartels, followed by actress Elizabeth Alexander; married, in April 2013, to Mary Spartels and resided in Sydney, Australia. Divorced from Mary in 2017, he returned to Melbourne and commutes.