Cut to black
Sopranos actor dies
Cut to black. Sadly, for real this time. True-life tragedy has struck
The Sopranos family with the death of Tony Soprano himself, actor James Gandolfini, at age 51.
Early reports indicated that Gandolfini died on Wednesday of an apparent heart attack while in Italy to attend a film festival. He was scheduled to take part in events at the festival this weekend.
And just like that, the TV world has lost the man who played one of the medium’s greatest characters of all time.
In many ways, as an HBO show, The Sopranos kick-started the cable revolution that continues to shape TV today.
Cable is where you look for quality. You can thank The
Sopranos for that. You can thank Gandolfini for that.
In 86 episodes from 1999 to 2007, Gandolfini played Tony Soprano, a complex mob boss capable of both extreme violence and heartwarming compassion.
Having spoken with Gandolfini on a number of occasions, it always was striking how soft-spoken and, for lack of a better term, artistic he was. Shy, even.
Gandolfini was so good at playing Tony Soprano that part of you always expected him to be a version of that guy. Like his character in The
Sopranos, Gandolfini originally was from New Jersey. He had appeared in more than 20 movies as a character actor before being cast as Tony Soprano, the role that changed his professional life forever.
Recently, Gandolfini was seen in the TV movie Nicky Deuce, which was put together by his buddy from The Sopranos, Steve Schirripa, who played Bobby Baccalieri. In Nicky Deuce Gandolfini made a comedic cameo, and Schirripa spoke about how fascinating it was to see Gandolfini throw himself into it so convincingly, given his close association with his signature role.
Reports indicated Gandolfini recently filmed a project called
Criminal Justice for HBO, which had received a limited series order.
Details obviously will emerge over the next few days about the circumstances of Gandolfini’s death. Certainly, he was overweight. At times that became a plot point for Tony Soprano, too.
As we all recall, the final episode of The Sopranos ended in shocking fashion. As Tony and his family were sitting in a diner, with Journey’s Don’t Stop
Believin’ playing, the scene abruptly cut to black.
It left everything open to interpretation. Did Tony die at that moment?
Subsequently whenever talk of a possible Sopranos movie came up, jokes would be made that too many of the characters were dead for it to be feasible. No one actually saw the main character die, though, so anything was possible.
Unfortunately, when death comes in the real world, there is no such ambiguity. A titan of TV is gone. For both the role itself and its influence, Tony Soprano was one of the most important characters in TV history.
And that means James Gandolfini will be remembered fondly as one of the most important actors the small screen ever has seen.