Leon Vitali, born in 1948, is an English actor, best known for his collaborations with film director Stanley Kubrick as his personal assistant and as an actor, most notably, as Lord Bullingdon in Barry Lyndon.
Vitali attended the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. Vitali guest-starred in a number of TV series in the early 1970s, appearing in Softly, Softly, Follyfoot, Roads to Freedom, Z Cars, Public Eye, The Fenn Street Gang, series 1 and Notorious Woman, among others. In 1973, he made his feature film debut in two movies: the Italian Super Bitch, directed by Massimo Dallamano, who had previously worked with Sergio Leone as a cinematographer in the first two of his Dollars Trilogy, and the television film Catholics, alongside Martin Sheen and Michael Gambon.
It wasn't until 1974 that Vitali met Stanley Kubrick, with whom he would go on to have a professional relationship for the rest of Kubrick's career. Vitali answered a casting call for Barry Lyndon and got the part of Lord Bullingdon, the title character's stepson. Kubrick and Vitali bonded during the shoot. As filming concluded, Vitali asked Kubrick if he could stay on, without pay, to observe the editing process, to which Kubrick agreed. Five years later, Kubrick sent Vitali a copy of Stephen King's The Shining and asked him to join the production of Kubrick's next film, to which Vitali eagerly agreed. He is credited in The Shining (1980) as "personal assistant to director".