I’ve recently been rewatching HBO’s landmark show The Sopranos over the past several months, and let me tell you, it’s not a cliche to say that it belongs among the greatest American TV shows of the modern era — alongside Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, The Wire and Mad Men.
Originally airing from 1999-2007, The Sopranos established a new standard for Mafia films and TV shows, and it remains relevant to this day thanks to the continuing successful careers of series creator David Chase and series co-stars like Lorraine Bracco, Edie Falco and Michael Imperioli.
The Sopranos was also groundbreaking in the way it handled subjects like family, morals and ethics, Italian-American identity, and men’s mental health issues, among other topics. The character of Tony Soprano was so violent, so complex, and so brilliantly written that it inspired a new age of TV anti-heroes, such as Walter White (Breaking Bad), Don Draper (Mad Men) and Dexter Morgan (Dexter). And the show remains influential: just last year, a prequel film called The Many Saints of Newark was released, which focused on Tony Soprano’s childhood and rise to notoriety.
Many of the stars of the show had not been established names and hadn’t expected it to be a massive hit. HBO gave Chase almost complete creative control and he exercised an iron fist over the scripts and dialogue. Although its enigmatic series finale was controversial, The Sopranos has overall aged very well and I would go as far as to say that it accomplished what The Godfather did for films.
But the man at the center of it all — James Gandolfini — remained frustratingly anonymous.
Gandolfini became a household name thanks to the success of The Sopranos, but in real life, the man gave very few interviews and seemed like a real homebody, content to shake hands and mingle at cocktail parties when required to do so, but also someone who seemed inherently uncomfortable with fame.
And sadly, since the man passed away of a sudden heart attack at the age of 51 in 2013, there will probably always be things about Gandolfini that we’ll never know.
But make no mistake — this man defined an entire TV show and singlehandedly become an icon of how to write and create a complex, nuanced bad guy character. Because at the end of the day, Tony Soprano is the villain of this story. He’s murdered people, he’s tortured them and he’s deeply involved in stereotypical Mafia activities like gambling, loansharking, fraud and large-scale intimidation. He frequently makes crude, flippant, or racist comments. And he’s also a chronic philanderer.
But Tony also genuinely believes in the importance of family and community. Whenever a relative or family friend passes away, he’s there. He provides for family members financially, even if they’re ungrateful for it. He adores all kinds of animals and he chokes back tears when he sees his daughter sing a solo in a school play. He worries over his teenage son’s apathy and poor academic performance. And, of course, being a mobster, Tony’s frequently wracked with guilt over regrettable deaths of former friends and business associates. Oh, and don’t forget about a potential FBI investigation hanging over his head.
As is shown over the course of the series, Tony is a product of his own environment, and suffers from panic attacks and depression due to a combination of stress, family dysfunction, and scars from an emotionally neglected childhood. Some of the most pivotal moments of the series revolve around Tony’s contentious relationship with his therapist, Dr. Melfi.
IMDB summed it up nicely on Gandolfini’s own biography: “frequently plays characters who are brutish, yet charming.”
Gandolfini was able to combine Tony’s most toxic and his most admirable qualities into a larger-than-life performance that’s become a gold standard for American TV. But privately, according to his friends, Gandolfini mentally struggled with playing such a dark, violent character for so long and being publicly identified as Tony Soprano. He also sometimes worried if the show was contributing to long-held, ignorant stereotypes of Italian-Americans.
“He was a genius. 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,” David Chase said.
Bryan Cranston, who won multiple Emmy Awards for his astonishing performance as anti-hero Walter White in Breaking Bad, later admitted that “if there hadn’t been a Tony Soprano first, Walter White wouldn’t exist.”
“James Gandolfini’s lumbering, brutish mob boss with the tortured psyche will endure as one of TV’s indelible characters,” the Associated Press reported upon news of Gandolfini’s death.
“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.”
James Joseph Gandolfini Jr. was born in Westwood, New Jersey on September 18, 1961. His mother was born in the US, but raised in Naples, while his father was born near Bologna. Gandolfini grew up blue-collar: his mom worked in a high school cafeteria, while his dad was a bricklayer and mason. The family spoke only Italian at home and considered themselves faithful Catholics.
Much like Tony Soprano himself, Gandolfini leaned into the class clown persona in high school, which earned him “class flirt” honors from his peers. After earning a communications degree from Rutgers University in 1983, Gandolfini found work as a bouncer and bartender in New York City. He only got into acting thanks to a friend, Roger Bart, convincing him to take a class at age 25.
“I dabbled a little bit in acting in high school and then I forgot about it completely. And then at about 25, I went to a class. I don’t think anybody in my family thought it was an intelligent choice,” Gandolfini later said in his classic self-deprecating tone.
“I don’t think anybody thought I’d succeed, which is understandable. I think they were just happy that I was doing something.”
After appearing in some off-Broadway plays and short films, Gandolfini made his Broadway debut in a 1992 production of A Streetcar Named Desire. He first caught David Chase’s eye thanks to his small but memorable role as a hitman in the film True Romance, directed by the late Tony Scott from a script by Quentin Tarantino. Although Chase considered plenty of other actors for the role of Tony, Gandolfini’s audition blew him away.
Robert Iler played Anthony Soprano Jr., better known as A.J., on the show and later retired from acting in his 20s after suffering from gambling and substance abuse problems (he’s clean now). To this day, Iler finds himself reluctant to watch any Sopranos episodes because he still gets emotional when he sees Gandolfini onscreen. In an interview, Iler once mentioned a charming incident during lunch break on set. Gandolfini overheard Iler confess to another cast member that he had never been to a Yankees game. The next day, Gandolfini came back with tickets and took Iler out to the ball game, no questions asked.
Another time, Gandolfini became enraged when he found out that he was the only actor who was receiving royalty payments from DVD sales of The Sopranos. To compensate, he demanded that HBO change their policy and personally wrote his co-stars checks.
But it wasn’t just co-stars that appreciated Gandolfini’s warmth. While it may have been motivated out of a desire to seem publicly and privately different than the often-terrifying mobster that he played, plenty of others outside of The Sopranos remembered Gandolfini is a stand-up guy who was deeply loyal to friends.
Brad Pitt worked with Gandolfini on three films: True Romance (1993), The Mexican (2001) and Killing Them Softly (2013). He colorfully described him as “a ferocious actor, a gentle soul and a genuinely funny man.”
In 2009, Gandolfini lent a helping hand to fellow Jersey native John Travolta after his son Jett died tragically of a seizure while on a family trip to Florida.
“James went out of his way to come to Florida and he would not leave Florida until I was okay, or he felt that I would be fine,” Travolta later revealed. “After a week I said, ‘Jim, really, you know, we’ll be fine. I’ve got a lot of support here.’
“But the idea that in our profession someone would go out of their way and not want to leave you until he felt you were okay, that’s the kind of soul that James Gandolfini was. He was a people person first and then everything else.”
Gandolfini prioritized his down-to-earth persona.
“In reality, I’m so boring that I don’t want people to get close to me, because they’ll realize how boring I am, and they won’t want to watch anymore,” he said half-jokingly to New Jersey Magazine. “I’m just a normal guy. It’s the writing that is interesting, and the characters. The less said about me, the better.”
In another case of life imitating art, in The Sopranos, one of Tony’s few non-Mafia friends is Artie Bucco, an old high school buddy of his who now runs the finest Italian restaurant in town. Similarly, Gandolfini once raised funds to help his old friend Clive Griffiths open up a restaurant called Vines in upstate New York.
In the New Jersey Magazine feature, Gandolfini reflected on the values, like hard work and integrity, that his family raised him to have, while also looking towards his future after The Sopranos was done. He also gave some advice to young actors:
“People concentrate on making contacts, on their resumes and on their phones. All that is nonsense. Work—do plays, learn your craft, and go to school. Keep working. Nobody is going to give you jobs for going to parties or any of that nonsense.
Go out, look around, do things. Stay out late a couple of nights and have some fun—but work, that is the thing. I did little plays where six people saw me. Some nights I was awful. You learn from that. You get up and go back the next day. And you know what? You get better. Nothing comes easily. A lot of young actors get interviewed and go on television, and it makes them start to think that they are important. And we’re not—not anymore than anybody else.”
Gandolfini began accumulating some more producing credits after The Sopranos wrapped up in 2007. He also donated time and money to breast cancer campaigns and produced a pair of documentaries about Iraq War veterans in order to raise awareness of PTSD.
In August 2013, Gandolfini took his wife and kids with him on a vacation to the homeland. They were planning to celebrate his son Michael’s junior high graduation with a trip to Rome, then attend the Taormina Film Festival in Sicily, where Gandolfini was due to receive a lifetime achievement award.
Tragically, after a long day of walking and sightseeing in the sweltering August heat, Gandolfini collapsed of a heart attack on the bathroom floor of his hotel room. His son found his body and paramedics were unable to revive him. Thousands of well-wishers posted official statements, both in the entertainment industry and around the world, in honor of a guy who just saw himself as “another fat guy from Jersey.”
While some people might only remember him as Tony Soprano, I think it’s also nice to reflect upon the quality human being that Gandolfini was, and his lasting legacy on and off the screen.
No, Bert and Ernie aren’t about to get whacked! Gandolfini made a surprise cameo on an episode of Sesame Street in 2002 where he gave Zoe some life lessons.
Letters from Las Cruces 