Thinking about it, it looks like some miracle he lived to reach 86, considering his recent health issues and the ton of weight he put on in his latest years. Surprisingly for someone so ubiquitous in popular cinema, I just found out I knew next to nothing about the man himself. Fortunately a Spanish blog posted a recent, lenghy interview with Spencer that I found very interesting.
There I learned he speaks several languages, including Spanish, because he spend his youth travelling abroad doing all sorts of odd jobs: professional swimmer, security guard, pilot, entrepeneur... i think he learned his Spanish in Venezuela, and his English by doing movies.
Speaking of his film work, the interview shows a surprisingly humble side of Spencer. He often mentions his film career as "doing the actor", as in "impersonating an actor", because he never felt like a real one. He got his start in small roles he took to pay for his college classes, and when he found himself in bigger roles he always felt out of place, because he found himself sharing the screens with trained actors, like Terence Hill or Eli Wallach, whom he credits for valuable advice on his acting.
Of Terence Hill, he mentions they still see each other regularly. "He comes here to eat pasta, because at home they make him follow a diet", and also credits their long term association was to never let their egos get in the way of their work or their friendship.
Spencer finally mentions his failed adventures in politics (he briefly joined Berlusconi's Forza Italia party), which he claims he fot out of as soon as he realized the ammount of dirtyness involved, and recent health problems, admitting he was close to death six months before the interview and still recovering. Despite this, h seemed articulate, in good spirits and didn't rule out further film work if his health allowed him to.
The whole piece (in Spanish, obviously) is available here.
