Sopranos’ James Gandolfini dies of heart attack

A HOST of stars have paid tribute to James Gandolfini, the actor famous for his lead role in mob drama The Sopranos, who died in Italy after a cardiac arrest at the age of 51.
James Gandolfini has died in Italy. He was 51. Picture: APJames Gandolfini has died in Italy. He was 51. Picture: AP
James Gandolfini has died in Italy. He was 51. Picture: AP

Dr Claudio Modini, head of the emergency room at the Policlinic Umberto I hospital in Rome, confirmed Gandolfini suffered a heart attack. He arrived at the hospital at 10:40pm on Wednesday night and was pronounced dead at 11pm after resuscitation efforts failed.

Antonio D’Amore, manager of Rome’s Boscolo Exedra hotel, said Gandolfini was discovered by his 13-year-old son, Michael.

His lumbering, thuggish mob boss with the tortured

psyche will endure as one of TV’s

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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 refused to be typecast by his role in the series that brought him three Emmy Awards during its six-season run.

“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.”

Organisers of the Taormina Film Festival in Sicily were scrambling to put together a tribute to Gandolfini, who had been expected to attend the festival’s closing ceremony this weekend and receive an award.

Organisers Mario Sesti and Tiziana Rocca said Gandolfini will instead be honoured with a ­tribute “remembering his career and talent”

Joe Gannascoli, who played Vito Spatafore in the drama series, said he was shocked and heartbroken. He said: “Fifty-one and leaves a kid – he was newly married. His son is fatherless now. It’s way too young.”

Gandolfini and his wife, Deborah, who were married in 2008, have a daughter, Liliana, born last October, HBO said. The actor and his former wife, Marcy, have a teenage son Michael.

Gandolfini’s performance in The Sopranos was his ticket to fame, but he managed to avoid being stereotyped as a gangster.

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In a December 2012 interview, 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 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.

The late director Tony Scott once called Gandolfini “a unique combination of charming and dangerous”. Gandolfini played a thug in Scott’s 1993 film True

Romance, who beat up Patricia Arquette’s character while offering such jarring, flirtatious banter as, “You got a lot of heart, kid.”

Edie Falco, who played Tony Soprano’s wife Carmela, remembered him as a “man of tremendous depth and sensitivity”.

“I am shocked and devastated by Jim’s passing,” she said. “I consider myself very lucky to have spent ten years as his close colleague.”

Sopranos co-star Michael Imperioli said: “Jimmy treated us like family with a generosity,

loyalty and compassion that is rare in this world.”

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