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| FILE - This file photo released by HBO in 2007 shows James Gandolfini as Tony Soprano in a scene from one of the last episodes of the HBO dramatic series "The Sopranos." HBO and the managers for Gandolfini say the actor died Wednesday, June 19, 2013, in Italy. He was 51. |
LOS ANGELES
(AP) -- James Gandolfini's lumbering, brutish mob boss with the tortured
psyche will endure as one of TV's indelible characters.
But
his portrayal of criminal Tony Soprano in HBO's landmark drama series
"The Sopranos" was just one facet of an actor who created a rich legacy
of film and stage work in a life cut short.
Gandolfini,
51, who died Wednesday while vacationing in Rome, refused to be bound
by his star-making role in the HBO series that brought him three Emmy
Awards during its six-season run and helped change the landscape of
television drama.
"He was a genius," said
"Sopranos" creator David Chase. "Anyone who saw him even in the smallest
of his performances knows that. He is one of the greatest actors of
this or any time. A great deal of that genius resided in those sad
eyes."
Dr. Claudio Modini, head of the
emergency room at the Policlinic Umberto I hospital in Rome, said
Gandolfini suffered a cardiac arrest and was pronounced dead at 11 p.m.
Wednesday after resuscitation efforts in the ambulance and hospital
failed.
Modini told The Associated Press that an autopsy would be performed starting 24 hours after the death, as required by law.
Michael
Kobold, a family friend, told reporters in Rome that a family member
discovered Gandolfini in his hotel room, but he declined to say whom.
NBC quoted the manager of Rome's Boscolo Exedra hotel as saying it was
Gandolfini's 13-year-old son, Michael.
Gandolfini
had been expected to receive an award at the Taormina Film Festival in
Sicily this weekend, and organizers said they were scrambling to instead
put together a tribute "remembering his career and talent."
Edie
Falco, who played Tony Soprano's wife Carmela on "The Sopranos,"
remembered him as a "man of tremendous depth and sensitivity."
"I
am shocked and devastated by Jim's passing," she said in a statement,
adding that her heart went out to his family "as those of us in his
pretend one hold on to the memories of our intense and beautiful time
together.
The love between Tony and Carmela was one of the greatest I've
ever known."
Joe Gannascoli, who played Vito Spatafore on the drama series, said he was shocked and heartbroken.
"Fifty-one and leaves a kid - he was newly married. His son is fatherless now. ... It's way too young," Gannascoli said.
Gandolfini
and his wife, Deborah, who were married in 2008, have a daughter,
Liliana, born last year, HBO said. Michael is the son of the actor and
his former wife, Marcy.
Gandolfini's
performance in "The Sopranos" was his ticket to fame, but he evaded
being stereotyped as a mobster after the drama's breathtaking blackout
ending in 2007. In a December 2012 interview with The Associated Press,
he was upbeat about the work he was getting post-Tony Soprano.
"I'm
much more comfortable doing smaller things," Gandolfini said then. "I
like them. I like the way they're shot; they're shot quickly. It's all
about the scripts - that's what it is - and I'm getting some interesting
little scripts."
He played then-CIA director Leon Panetta in Kathryn Bigelow's Osama bin Laden hunt docudrama "Zero Dark Thirty."
"I
told him I was glad an Italian played me - swear words and all,"
Panetta said Thursday. "We laughed together at the fact that tough guys
can have a heart of gold. He did, and we will miss him."
Gandolfini
also worked with Chase for the `60s period drama "Not Fade Away," in
which he played the old-school father of a wannabe rocker. And in Andrew
Dominick's crime flick "Killing Them Softly," he played an aged,
washed-up hit man.
Brad Pitt, his co-star in
that film, called him "a ferocious actor, a gentle soul and a genuinely
funny man. I am fortunate to have sat across the table from him and am
gutted by this loss. I wish his family strength and some semblance of
peace."
On Broadway, he garnered a best-actor Tony Award nomination for 2009's "God of Carnage."
Deploying
his unsought clout as a star, Gandolfini produced a pair of
documentaries for HBO focused on a cause he held dear: veterans affairs.
His
final projects included the film "Animal Rescue," directed by Michael
R. Roskam and written by Dennis Lehane, which has been shot and is
expected to be released next year. He also had agreed to star in a
seven-part limited series for HBO, "Criminal Justice," based on a BBC
show. He had shot a pilot for an early iteration of the project.
While
Tony Soprano was a larger-than-life figure, Gandolfini was
exceptionally modest and obsessive - he described himself as "a
260-pound Woody Allen."
In past interviews, his cast mates had far more glowing descriptions to offer.
"I
had the greatest sparring partner in the world, I had Muhammad Ali,"
said Lorraine Bracco, who, as Tony's psychiatrist Dr. Melfi, went
one-on-one with Gandolfini in their penetrating therapy scenes. "He
cares what he does, and does it extremely well."
Gandolfini
grew up in Park Ridge in New Jersey, the son of a building maintenance
chief at a Catholic school and a high school lunch lady.
After
earning a degree in communications from Rutgers University, Gandolfini
moved to New York, where he worked as a bartender, bouncer and nightclub
manager. When he was 25, he joined a friend of a friend in an acting
class.
Gandolfini's first big break was a
Broadway production of "A Streetcar Named Desire" where he played Steve,
one of Stanley Kowalski's poker buddies. His film debut was in Sidney
Lumet's "A Stranger Among Us" (1992).
Director Tony Scott had praised Gandolfini's talent for fusing violence with charisma - which he would perfect in Tony Soprano.
Gandolfini
played a tough guy in Scott's 1993 film "True Romance," who beat
Patricia Arquette's character
to a pulp while offering such jarring,
flirtatious banter as, "You got a lot of heart, kid."
Scott called Gandolfini "a unique combination of charming and dangerous."
In
his early career, Gandolfini had supporting roles in "Crimson Tide"
(1995), "Get Shorty" (1995), "The Juror" (1996), Lumet's "Night Falls on
Manhattan" (1997), "She's So Lovely" (1997), "Fallen" (1998) and "A
Civil Action" (1998). But it was "True Romance" that piqued the interest
of Chase.
In his 2012 AP interview,
Gandolfini said he gravitated to acting as a release, a way to get rid
of anger. "I don't know what exactly I was angry about," he said.
"I
try to avoid certain things and certain kinds of violence at this
point," he said last year. "I'm getting older, too. I don't want to be
beating people up as much. I don't want to be beating women up and those
kinds of things that much anymore."
He was
mourned online in a flood of celebrity comments. "The great James
Gandolfini passed away today.
Only 51. I can't believe it," Bette Midler
posted on her Twitter account.
"An extraordinary actor. RIP, Mr. Gandolfini," Robin Williams tweeted.
His
"Sopranos" co-star Michael Imperioli said that "Jimmy treated us like
family with a generosity, loyalty and compassion that is rare in this
world."
The U.S. Embassy in Rome, which said
it had learned about the death from the media, said it would be
available to provide a death certificate and help prepare Gandolfini's
body for return to the United States.
The Embassy said it can take
between four and seven days to arrange shipment outside of Italy.
It
isn't yet known yet what caused his heart to stop beating. Sudden
cardiac arrest can be due to a heart attack, a heart rhythm problem, or
as a result of trauma. The chance of cardiac arrest increases as people
get older; men over age 45 have a greater risk.
