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Actor James Gandolfini dies in Italy at age 51

He became a star with tightly wound portrayal.

The New York Times

June 20, 2013 at 12:12PM

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 Wednesday. He was 51.

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.

Gandolfini died of cardiac arrest. He was pronounced dead at 11 p.m. (5 p.m. EDT) Wednesday in Rome after being rushed by ambulance to the Policlinic Umberto I hospital. Dr. Claudio Modini, head of the hospital emergency room, said Gandolfini arrived at the hospital at 10:40 p.m. (4:40 p.m. EDT) and was pronounced dead after reanimation efforts in the ambulance and hospital failed.

Gandolfini, who grew up in Park Ridge in Bergen County, N.J., came to embody the resilience of the Garden State on "The Sopranos," which 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 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 that left millions of viewers wondering whether Tony Soprano had met his fate at the table of a diner.

'A great talent'

The success of "The Sopranos" helped make HBO a dominant player in the competitive field of scripted television programming and transformed Gandolfini from a character actor into a star. The series, created by David Chase, won two Emmy Awards for outstanding drama series, and Gandolfini won three Emmys for outstanding lead actor in a drama, having been nominated six times for the award.

HBO said of Gandolfini in a statement 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."

Chase, in a statement, called Gandolfini "one of the greatest actors of this or any time," and said, "A great deal of that genius resided in those sad eyes." He added: "I remember telling him many times: 'You don't get it. You're like Mozart.' There would be silence at the other end of the phone."

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 mason. His mother, Santa, was a high school cafeteria chef.

He attended Park Ridge High School 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 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 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 was largely unknown to the public when Chase cast him in "The Sopranos" in 1999.

"I thought it was a wonderful script," 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."

"The Sopranos," which also became a springboard for television writers like Matthew Weiner (who would later create the AMC drama "Mad Men") and Terence Winter (who later created the HBO series "Boardwalk Empire"), drew widespread acclaim for its detailed studies of the lives of its characters, and, at its center, Gandolfini's portrayal of Tony Soprano, who was tightly wound and prone to acts of furious violence. (He beat and choked another mobster to death for insulting the memory of his beloved racehorse, to name but one example.)

'Drink six cups of coffee'

Gandolfini, who had studied the Meisner technique of acting for two years, said that he used it to focus his anger and incorporate it into his performances. In an interview for the television series "Inside the Actors Studio," Gandolfini said he would deliberately hit himself on the head or stay up all night to evoke the desired reaction.

If you're tired, every single thing that somebody does makes you mad, Gandolfini said in the interview. "Drink six cups of coffee. Or just walk around with a rock in your shoe. It's silly, but it works."

Tony Soprano — and the 2007 finale of "The Sopranos," which cut to black before viewers could learn what plans a mysterious restaurant patron had for Tony as he enjoyed a relaxing meal with his wife and children — would continue to follow Gandolfini throughout his career.

He went on to play a series of tough guys and heavies, including an angry Brooklyn parent in the Broadway drama "God of Carnage," for which he was nominated for a Tony Award in 2009; the director of the CIA in "Zero Dark Thirty," Kathryn Bigelow's dramatization of the hunt for Osama bin Laden; and a hit man in the 2012 crime thriller "Killing Them Softly."

Gandolfini also produced the documentaries "Alive Day Memories: Home From Iraq" and "Wartorn: 1861-2010," about the history of post-traumatic stress in the military.

Survivors include his wife, Deborah Lin Gandolfini; a daughter, Liliana, born last year; a teenage son, Michael, from his marriage to Marcella Wudarski, which ended in divorce.

In a 2010 interview with the New York Times, Gandolfini said that he was not worried about being typecast. "Mostly it's not a lot of that stuff anymore with shooting and killing and dying and blood," he said. "I'm getting a little older, you know. The running and the jumping and killing, it's a little past me."

Asked why he didn't appear in more comedies, he answered, "Nobody's asked."

-- This report includes information from the Associated Press

James Gandolfini (The Minnesota Star Tribune)

FILE - This undated publicity photo, released by HBO, shows actor James Gandolfini in his role as Tony Soprano, head of the New Jersey crime family portrayed in HBO’s “The Sopranos.” HBO and the managers for Gandolfini say the actor died Wednesday, June 19, 2013, in Italy. He was 51. (AP Photo/HBO, Barry Wetcher, File) FILE - This May 20, 2013 file photo shows actor James Gandolfini at the LA premiere of “Nicky Deuce” in Los Angeles. HBO and the managers for Gandolfini say the actor died Wednesday, June 19, 2013, in Italy. He was 51. (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP, file) (The Minnesota Star Tribune)

FILE - This undated publicity image released by HBO shows, from left, Tony Sirico, Steven Van Zandt, James Gandolfini, Michael Imperioli and Vicint Pastore,from the HBO drama series "The Sopranos." HBO and the managers for Gandolfini say the actor died Wednesday, June 19, 2013, in Italy. He was 51. (AP Photo/HBO, Anthony Neste, file) (The Minnesota Star Tribune)

above and At left: James Gandolfini won three Emmy Awards for his role as Tony Soprano, shown with actress Edie Falco, left, who played his wife on the celebrated show. Below: Gandolfini, who turned the mobster stereotype on its head, was the core of the series, which also starred Tony Sirico, Steven Van Zandt, Michael Imperioli and Vincent Pastore. Associated Press photos (The Minnesota Star Tribune)