GANDOLFINI

A hardworking character actor and surprising star whose untimely death left a hole in the heart of filmdom.

Before his portrayal of Tony Soprano on HBO’s The Sopranos made him a household name in the late 1990s, James Gandolfini had been well respected by peers like Denzel Washington and Patricia Arquette, directors like Sidney Lumet, and critics who noticed his performances no matter how small his roles on stage and screen. The son of working-class Italians from suburban Westwood, New Jersey—his father was a bricklayer and janitor, and his mother a school cafeteria manager—Gandolfini caught the acting bug in high school but didn’t pursue it until moving to New York City after college. Gandolfini (Jamie, Jim, or Bucky, depending on how one knew him) soon became a workhorse, steadily drawing attention. His breakout role was as the brutal psychopath Virgil in Tony Scott’s 1993 film True Romance, written by Quentin Tarantino. Tiring (and feeling a little ashamed) of being typecast as Italian hoods, Gandolfini abruptly walked out on the 1996 HBO production of Gotti, in which he was cast as Sammy Gravano; he was told he’d never work for HBO again. Bailey, a film critic and biographer, displays a respect for Gandolfini’s craft and a sympathy for his sweet and salty nature off-screen. Of the actor’s best roles, the author writes, “He was such a combustible combination of ill-fitting, incompatible elements. He could pivot, seemingly effortlessly, from warmth to menace, from folksiness to danger, on a dime.”

A fast-moving, entertaining bio of a Hollywood mensch.