James Gandolfini, the Emmy Award-winning actor who shot to fame on the
HBO drama "The Sopranos" as Tony Soprano, a tough-talking, hard-living
crime boss with a stolid exterior but a rich interior life, died on
Wednesday. He was 51 years old.
Mr. Gandolfini's death was confirmed by HBO. He was traveling in Rome,
where he was on vacation and was scheduled to attend the Taormina Film
Festival. A cause of death was not immediately announced; a press
representative for HBO said that Mr. Gandolfini may have died from a
heart attack, though other news reports said he died from a stroke.
Mr. Gandolfini, who grew up in Park Ridge, in Bergen County, N.J.,
came to embody the resilience of the Garden State on "The Sopranos," a
television drama that made its debut in 1999 and ran for six seasons
on HBO.
In its pilot episode, viewers were introduced to the richly
complicated life of Tony Soprano, a New Jersey mob kingpin who is
suffering from panic attacks and begins seeing a therapist. Over 86
episodes, audiences followed Mr. Gandolfini in the role as he was
tormented by his mother (played by Nancy Marchand), his wife (Edie
Falco), rival mobsters, the occasional surreal dream sequence and, in
2007, a famously ambiguous series finale which left millions of
viewers wondering whether or not Tony Soprano had met his fate at the
table of a diner.
The success of "The Sopranos" helped make HBO a dominant player in the
competitive field of scripted television programming, and transformed
Mr. Gandolfini from a character actor into a star. The series, created
by David Chase, won two Emmy Awards for outstanding drama series, and
Mr. Gandolfini won three Emmys for outstanding lead actor in a drama,
having been nominated six times for the award.
HBO said of Mr. Gandolfini in a statement on Wednesday, "He was
special man, a great talent, but more importantly a gentle and loving
person who treated everyone no matter their title or position with
equal respect."
James Joseph Gandolfini Jr. was born in Westwood, N.J., on Sept. 18,
1961. His father was an Italian immigrant who held a number of jobs,
including janitor, bricklayer and cement mason. His mother, Santa, was
a high school lunch lady.
He attended Park Ridge High School in New Jersey and Rutgers
University, graduating in 1983 with a degree in communications. He
drove a delivery truck, managed nightclubs and tended bar in Manhattan
before becoming interested in acting at age 25 when a friend brought
him to an acting class.
He began his movie career in 1987 with a small role in the low-budget
horror comedy "Shock! Shock! Shock!" In 1992 he had a small part in
the Broadway revival of "A Streetcar Named Desire" starring Alec
Baldwin and Jessica Lange.
By the mid-1990s Mr. Gandolfini had made gangster roles a specialty,
playing burly but strangely charming tough guys in films like "True
Romance" (1993) and "The Juror" (1996). He had an impressive list of
character-acting credits but he was largely unknown to the general
public when David Chase cast him in "The Sopranos" in 1999.
"I thought it was a wonderful script," Mr. Gandolfini told Newsweek in
2001, recalling his audition. "I thought, 'I can do this.' But I
thought they would hire someone a little more debonair, shall we say.
A little more appealing to the eye."
Survivors include his wife, Deborah Lin; a daughter, Liliana, born
last year; and a teenage son, Michael, from his marriage to Marcella
Wudarski, which ended in divorce.
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