Best Known As: Tony Soprano in the TV series The Sopranos
James Gandolfini spent most of the 1990s on stage and in small parts in movies such as True Romance (1993), Get Shorty (1995) and A Civil Action (1998). In 1999 he was cast as Tony Soprano, the central character in the HBO mobster soap opera The Sopranos, and he became a star. Gandolfini continued work in feature films, including The Mexican (2001, with Julia Roberts), The Man Who Wasn't There (2001, starring Billy Bob Thornton) and Romance & Cigarettes (2005, with Kate Winslet).
Career Highlights: The Mexican, Get Shorty, The Man Who Wasn't There
First Major Screen Credit: Italian Movie (1993)
Biography
Born and raised in New Jersey, press-shy James Gandolfini forged a film career as a prolific character actor before finally emerging as a bona fide star in the critically-lauded HBO series The Sopranos. After earning his college degree in 1983, Gandolfini headed to New York to study at the Actors Studio. Supporting himself for almost ten years as a bartender and nightclub manager, Gandolfini's major break came in 1992 with a role in a Broadway version of A Streetcar Named Desire starring Alec Baldwin and Jessica Lange, and his film debut in Sidney Lumet's A Stranger Among Us. Following small parts in several 1993 films, including the Quentin Tarantino-scripted True Romance, Gandolfini played more substantial roles as one of the heavies in Terminal Velocity (1994), Geena Davis' neighborhood boyfriend in Angie (1994), one of the submarine crew in Crimson Tide (1995), and a stuntman-turned-Mob enforcer in Get Shorty (1995). Equally gifted at playing characters on either side of the law, Gandolfini appeared as the violent neighbor who assaults Robin Wright Penn in She's So Lovely (1997) and a cop in Lumet's legal drama Night Falls on Manhattan (1997).
Gandolfini played supporting roles in several more films, including Fallen (1998) and A Civil Action (1998), before he was cast as the head of a dysfunctional Mafia family in The Sopranos. Anchored by Gandolfini's superbly-nuanced performance as Prozac-popping, mother-bedeviled capo Tony Soprano, The Sopranos was hailed as a TV masterpiece for its alternately funny, surreal and deadly-serious look at New Jersey Mob life. Though he was passed over for the Emmy, Gandolfini won the SAG and Golden Globe Awards for Lead Actor in a TV drama for The Sopranos' 1999 season. During the series break, Gandolfini appeared as a slimy pornographer in 8MM (1999).
Gandolfini finally added the Emmy to his trophies in 2000 for the second season of The Sopranos. Despite the inevitable criticism about the series' sophomore slump, there was no question as to Gandolfini's continuing excellence as the New Jersey Mob paterfamilias. Gandolfini followed his Emmy triumph with a supporting role as a gay hit man in The Mexican (2001), easily stealing the film from co-stars Julia Roberts and Brad Pitt. Even as he was earning The Mexican's few good notices in theaters, Gandolfini was garnering still more plaudits for The Sopranos' controversial third season, as Tony's increasingly delinquent son elicited anguished soul-searching from Tony about his legacy. Though his third Emmy nomination spoke to his formidable TV presence as Tony, Gandolfini also further burnished his movie credits with a small part in Joel Coen and Ethan Coen's Cannes Film Festival award winner The Man Who Wasn't There (2001), and a major starring role as a corrupt Army colonel who goes head-to-head with Robert Redford's incarcerated general in The Last Castle (2001).
Gandolfini continued to impress on The Sopranos for the next few years, but he struggled to match that success on the big screen. He was a part of the infamous bomb Surviving Christmas, and had the lead in the never released John Turturro directed musical Romance & Cigarettes. In 2006 he was a part of the high-powered ensemble for Steve Zaillian's All the King's Men that included Sean Penn, Jude Law, Anthony Hopkins, and Kate Winslet. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
James J. Gandolfini, Jr.
September 18, 1961 (1961-09-18)(age 48) Westwood, New Jersey,
United States
Occupation
Actor
Years active
1992–present
Spouse(s)
Marcy Wudarski (1999-2002)
Deborah Lin (2008-present)
James J. Gandolfini, Jr. (born September 18, 1961) is American actor. He is best known for his role as Tony Soprano in the HBOTV seriesThe Sopranos, about a troubled crime boss struggling to balance his family life and his career in the Mafia. Gandolfini's other roles include pornographer Eddie Poole in 8mm, woman-beating mob enforcer Virgil in the Quentin Tarantino-written thriller True Romance, a gay hitman in The Mexican, enforcer/stuntman Bear in Get Shorty, and a martinet military prison commander in The Last Castle. He also played James Goss in Yemar on the Disney Channel. In 2007, Gandolfini produced the HBO documentary Alive Day Memories: Home from Iraq in which he interviewed 10 injured veterans from the Iraq War.
Gandolfini was born in Westwood, New Jersey.[1] His mother, Santa, a high school lunch lady, was born in the U.S. and raised in Italy.[2] His father, James Gandolfini, Sr., a native of Borgotaro, Italy, was a bricklayer, cement mason, and later the head custodian at Paramus Catholic High School.[2][3][4] His parents were devout Catholics and spoke Italian at home.[3][5] Gandolfini grew up in Park Ridge, New Jersey, and graduated from Park Ridge High School in 1979, where he played basketball and acted in school plays.[6] He was awarded the title "Class " in his senior yearbook. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Communications from Rutgers University, where he worked as a bouncer at an on-campus pub.[7] Gandolfini also worked as a bartender and club manager before embarking on an acting career.[7] Gandolfini was introduced to acting as a young man living in New York City when he accompanied a friend to an acting class. In 2003, Gandolfini appeared in a series of television commercials with Greg Schiano promoting Rutgers football.[8]
Career
He performed in a 1992 Broadway production of On the Waterfront for six months. One of his better known film roles is that of Virgil, a brutal woman-beating mob enforcer, in the 1993 romantic thriller True Romance. Gandolfini states in an "Inside the Actors Studio" interview that one of his major inspirations for the role of Virgil was an old friend of his, whose job was that of a hitman.[9]
In 1994 film Terminal Velocity, Gandolfini played Ben Pinkwater, a seemingly mild-mannered insurance man who turns out to be a violent Russian mobster. He also appeared in The Juror as a mob enforcer with a conscience. In Get Shorty he appeared as a bearded ex-stuntman with a Southern accent. He played the mayor of New York in the 2009 remake of The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3. James Gandolfini returned to HBO in 2007 as the executive producer of the Emmy nominated documentary special Alive Day Memories: Home From Iraq, his first project after “The Sopranos” – and the first production for his company Attaboy Films which was opened in 2006 with producing partner Alexandra Ryan.
Gandolfini's most acclaimed role to date is that of Tony Soprano, the Mafia boss and family man in the multi-award-winning HBO series The Sopranos, which debuted in 1999. He has won three Emmys for "Best Actor in a Drama" for his depiction of New Jersey Mafia boss Tony Soprano, an aging baby boomer who constantly questions his own identity and purpose. Gandolfini eventually garnered $1,000,000 per episode in the series. Entertainment Weekly recently listed him as the 42nd Greatest TV Icon of All Time for playing Tony Soprano.
Alive Day: Home from Iraq
In 2007, Gandolfini produced a documentary with HBO focused on injured Iraq veterans and their devotion to America, while surveying the physical and emotional costs of war. Ten surviving soldiers were interviewed by Gandolfini, who revealed their thoughts on the challenges which they face integrating back into society and family life. They also reflected on the memories of the day when they narrowly escaped death, and what life may have been like in other circumstances.
Personal life
Gandolfini considers himself a pacifist and maintained reservations about continuing his portrayal of the violent mob boss.[citation needed] His sister, Johanna Antonacci, is the manager of the Family Division of the New Jersey Superior Court in Hackensack, New Jersey. Gandolfini is a fan of motorcycles and owns a Harley Davidson and a Vespascooter. On May 4, 2006, Gandolfini was riding his Vespa when it was hit by a taxi, in traffic. He was forced to undergo knee surgery after the accident, postponing the filming of the final Sopranos episodes.
He keeps ties with his hometown of Park Ridge by supporting The Octoberwoman Foundation for Breast Cancer Research. He appears at their annual October banquet and often brings other Sopranos cast members to help Octoberwoman draw large crowds. He currently resides in New York City, and owns a lot on the Lake Manitoba Narrows, presumably to build a cottage.[11]
On August 30, 2008, Gandolfini married his girlfriend, former model Deborah Lin, in her hometown of Honolulu, Hawaii, after dating her for two years. Gandolfini has one child with his ex-wife, Marcy Wudarski, from whom he was divorced in December 2002.
