James Gandolfini

James John Gandolfini Jr. (September 18, 1961 – June 19, 2013) was an American actor.

Gandolfini was born in Westwood, New Jersey on September 18, 1961.

His mother, Santa (née Penna), was a high school food service worker of Italian descent who was born in the United States and raised in Naples.

His Italian-born father, James Joseph Gandolfini Sr. (born Giacomo Giuseppe Gandolfini) a native of Borgo Val di Taro (in the Northeastern Italian region of Emilia-Romagna), worked as a bricklayer and cement mason and later was the head custodian at Paramus Catholic High School.

James Sr. earned a Purple Heart in World War II.

The elder Gandolfini would purchase car tires from a shop owned by Salvatore Travolta, the father of John Travolta.

Consequently, James Jr. and Travolta became friends and would later act together in five films.

Gandolfini's parents were devout Catholics who spoke Italian at home.

Due to the influence of his parents, he developed a strong sense of Italian-American identity and visited Italy regularly.

He had two sisters.

Gandolfini grew up in Park Ridge, New Jersey, and graduated from Park Ridge High School in 1979, where he played basketball, acted in school plays, and was awarded the title "Class Flirt" in his senior yearbook.

He earned a BA in Communications from Rutgers University-New Brunswick in 1983, where he worked as a bouncer at an on-campus pub.

He also worked as a bartender and club manager in Manhattan prior to his acting career.

He was introduced to acting while living in New York City, when he accompanied his friend Roger Bart to a Meisner technique acting class.

He studied for two years under Kathryn Gately at The Gately Poole Conservatory.

After graduating from Rutgers and acting school, Gandolfini worked various jobs in Manhattan while acting in small-budget films.

He made his Broadway theatre debut in the production of A Streetcar Named Desire as Steve Hubbell.

His first film role was in a 1989 New York University student film titled Eddy.

Gandolfini is also known for his roles on Broadway in A Streetcar Named Desire (1992), On the Waterfront (1995), and God of Carnage (2009), the latter earning him a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play nomination.

Gandolfini was featured in numerous films including True Romance (1993), Crimson Tide (1995), Get Shorty (1995), A Civil Action (1998), The Last Castle (2001), Romance & Cigarettes (2005), All the King's Men (2006), In the Loop (2009), Where the Wild Things Are (2009), The Taking of Pelham 123 (2009), Not Fade Away (2012), and Zero Dark Thirty (2012).

One of his earlier major film roles was that of Virgil, a brutal mob enforcer, in the romantic thriller True Romance (1993).

Gandolfini stated that one of his major inspirations for his character was an old friend of his who was a hitman.

Despite disappointing box office numbers, Gandolfini's performance received critical praise.

He was subsequently cast as insurance salesman and Russian mobster Ben Pinkwater in the action film Terminal Velocity (1994).

He also appeared in the 1995 Broadway production of On the Waterfront as Charley Malloy.

In 1995 he played United States Navy Lieutenant Bobby Dougherty in the submarine film Crimson Tide.

In that same year he played Bear, a bearded ex-stuntman with a Southern accent, in Get Shorty (1995).

The film, which was based on the book of the same title and directed by Barry Sonnenfeld, received positive critical reception.

The cast received a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture.

In 1995, television writer and producer David Chase pitched the original idea for The Sopranos to multiple television networks, including commercial broadcast networks Fox and CBS, before premium network HBO picked it up.

He was cast as a mob enforcer with a conscience in the legal thriller film The Juror (1996).

Despite the film receiving negative critical response, Gandolfini's role was positively received.

He was best known for his portrayal of Tony Soprano, the Italian-American Mafia crime boss in HBO's television series The Sopranos (1999–2007).

For this role, he won three Emmy Awards, five Screen Actors Guild Awards, and one Golden Globe Award.

His role as Tony Soprano has been described as one of the greatest and most influential performances in television history.

Tony Soprano critical reviews and influence:

He also produced the war documentaries Alive Day Memories: Home from Iraq (2007) and Wartorn: 1861–2010 (2011) as well as the HBO film Hemingway & Gellhorn (2012), which gained him a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Miniseries or Movie nomination.

He gained acclaim for playing against type starring in the romantic comedy Enough Said (2013).

For the role, he earned numerous critics awards including a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination.

In 2013, Gandolfini died of a heart attack in Rome at the age of 51.