It’s 25 years of ‘The West Wing.’ Meet the Philly-raised actor who was there from the start

Last week, the cast of the beloved political TV series The West Wing returned to the halls of the White House to celebrate its 25th anniversary with a heartfelt speech from cast member Martin Sheen, who played the fictional President Jed Bartlet.

“We are rightly called to find something in our lives worth fighting for — something deeply personal and uncompromising, something that can unite the will of the spirit with the work of the flesh, and when we find that, we will discover fire for the second time,” said Sheen in the Rose Garden, where he stood next to show creator Aaron Sorkin and real-life First Lady Jill Biden.

“Your work inspired so many to step forward and serve our country — maybe even some of the people here today: working in Congress, at nonprofits and on political campaigns, or at the White House,” Biden told the cast.

Since first premiering in 1999, The West Wing has had an outsized impact in pop culture, extending into books, podcasts, college courses, and even fan conventions. The latest project comes from Philly-raised actor Melissa Fitzgerald, who played assistant to the press secretary Carol Fitzpatrick and coauthored What’s Next: A Backstage Pass to The West Wing, Its Cast and Crew, and Its Enduring Legacy of Service. She was among the group that visited the White House.

While Fitzgerald has spent more than a decade in D.C. working in social justice advocacy, it was in Philadelphia where she embraced the love of politics. Growing up with two politically engaged parents in Chestnut Hill — her father James J. Fitzgerald was a longtime judge and her mother Carol M. Fitzgerald led the Pennsylvania Society — Fitzgerald has fond memories of stuffing envelopes for campaigns.

“To me, public service was really noble, and the best, smartest people and the most committed and passionate people I knew chose those lives,” Fitzgerald told The Inquirer in a recent interview. “I’m still a hopeful person. I still think that government can and should be a force for good in people’s lives.”

That sense of idealism would serve her well as she auditioned for The West Wing. Though her parents strongly encouraged law school, Fitzgerald moved to New York to pursue acting after she graduated with an English degree from Penn. She met Sorkin through the city’s theater scene and he later asked her to audition for The West Wing. She was hooked after reading the pilot script.

Political shows were rarely successful on network television before The West Wing, Fitzgerald said. “It was a really big risk [for NBC],” she recalled.

The series was extraordinarily successful, spanning seven seasons and earning 26 Emmy Awards, including winning outstanding drama series four years in a row. The cast stayed close over the years since the cameras stopped rolling — Fitzgerald calls them “a real family” — and they have reunited frequently, from vacations to birthdays. (Allison Janney once threw a surprise birthday party for Fitzgerald at her family home in Chestnut Hill.)

While the cast has seen numerous books released about the show, there hadn’t quite been a definitive insider tell-all. Book agents often approached the West Wing family with pitches, but it wasn’t until November 2019 when Fitzgerald began thinking about it seriously.

It was at Janney’s birthday party in Los Angeles, where Fitzgerald and her costar-turned-coauthor Mary McCormack (who played deputy National Security Adviser Kate Harper) discussed a potential angle over slices of vanilla cake with chocolate frosting.

“I started talking with [McCormack] about it, and she said, ‘Yeah, let’s do it through the lens of service. I’ll do that with you,’” the actor said. “Her husband was standing behind us waving his arms, saying, ‘Don’t do it! It’s gonna be so much work!’ Well, he was right.”

It took almost four years. During the COVID-19 lockdown — as the show saw a resurgence of popularity on Netflix from audiences desperate for a dose of optimism — the coauthors interviewed more than 100 cast and crew members, from makeup artists and hair stylists to writers and producers.

Released in August, the nearly-600-page book is a chatty and thorough look behind the scenes, with inside-the-episode chapters and spotlights on the advocacy work of various actors like Janney, Rob Lowe, and Bradley Whitford. Like its subject, the book takes a decidedly bright and hopeful tone, praising the impact of the show’s legacy, especially on aspiring public servants and politicians (former President Barack Obama brought the entire box set with him on his 2008 campaign trail).

What’s Next makes the case that it wasn’t just the audience who found inspiration in Sorkin’s virtuous story, but the cast members did too, some of them going on to champion social justice issues in their personal lives. Fitzgerald herself pursued projects combining her entertainment background with advocacy work. She now works for All Rise, a nonprofit advocating for improving the criminal justice system to better serve people struggling with substance use and mental health challenges.

One fun fact the book doesn’t mention: Some West Wing actors love to ask Fitzgerald to demonstrate the ever-elusive Philly accent. And she complies.