The Death of James Gandolfini.....

[crosby]

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/gossip/la-et-mg-james-gandolfini-dies-dead-celebrities-react-twitter-2010619,0,6614394.story


"James Gandolfini, who made his mark playing troubled mob boss Tony Soprano, died Wednesday in Italy from a possible heart attack. He was 51.

The actor left a notable imprint in Hollywood with an acting career that included television, theater and film. Upon hearing of his death, many of his colleagues expressed their condolences via social media."

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a sad day. i just can't believe it.
corson

[Lifebringer]

Yeah, he's in that new Brad Pitt movie also, and I understand it/move, knocks on a few doors the ptw thought we didn't have the key to.
Can't wait to see it. He just finished that movie and it is about ET's and asteroidal secretgovstuff.

I hope they had nothing to do with it. he was a little overweight. Chris Christy has that type of Suprano governing technique. I loved Gandofini's ability to take on all different parts.. the warden...supranos...the new movie...a gay hitman...a man going through a change after 50 and takes off for Florida, to find himself, only to be confronted with temptations of infidelity, and the maturity to NOT endulge. A very talented actor who changed the "brady bunch" or Cosby family image to the darker, seedier side of crime, while holding some moral tie to a family that has to deal with his position as a cheating mob boss. Very good acting. I especially liked that he changed after being married and didn't want to do criminal mob crime movies anymore. He also was in touch with his chi, and was always trying to lift others in a smile or joke.

He's gone to the other side now, and is probably shedding a tear, over how much his talent and persona while here, was loved.

[Roisin]

It seems like there have been quite a few well-known overweight actor's who have ended up dying early of a heart attack. This only shows how stressful it must be working in Hollywood as a busy actor.... and Gandolfini was one of the busiest one's out there. It's really kind of scary when you think about it because you know that they probably were enrolled in the best preventive healthcare programs in the world as they certainly could afford it yet, they still end up dying of heart attacks anyway. At any rate, Gandolfini was one of the good ones. His wonderful talent and charisma has brought much joy to his fans all over the world. He will be missed! [SNIFF]

[Daughter of Time]

Aside from being overweight and having the stresses of a busy actor, there are factors at work which lead so many actors to an early death, and these go beyond the physical strains and exhaustion of working very long days.

A good actor relies not only on technique, but on being; on becoming the character. For the character to be believable, the actor has to feel like they are the character. Actors have to feel the emotions that the character feels and those emotions become imbedded in the subconscious and the subconscious is literal and doesn't know it is acting. Strong actors do not act! They become! The strain is enormous, especially for character actors who will do anything to become the character.

Actors have been known to do drugs when they have to play drug addicts, walk with pebbles in their shoes when they are to simulate a limp, walk around blind folded and stumble and fall and get hurt, when they are to play a blind person... and the list goes on and on.

In general, comedians have longer lives because their state of mind is on comedy so much of the time, unless, of course, they have very destructive lifestyles.

[Cidersomerset]

http://static.bbci.co.uk/frameworks/barlesque/2.45.9/desktop/3.5/img/blq-blocks_grey_alpha.png

20 June 2013 Last updated at 12:19

Tony Soprano - Gandolfini's defining roleBy William Gallagher

TV critic

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/68278000/jpg/_68278142_vpgec333.jpg




James Gandolfini became a star because of Tony Soprano, but he was an unlikely
choice for the role and The Sopranos was an unlikely idea for a television series.

When production started in 1998, Gandolfini was 36 and a powerful stage actor
who had most success with strong roles in On the Waterfront and A Streetcar
Named Desire on Broadway.But he had little television experience and he didn't see
himself as typical leading man material. For the role of Tony Soprano, he once
said: "I thought they would hire some good-looking guy, not George Clooney but
some Italian George Clooney."

If the series had aired on any of the major US television networks, that is exactly
who would have been cast. But The Sopranos did not air on those channels, though
it was not for want of trying.Back in 1996, when it was suggested that he think of a
TV version of The Godfather that could run as a series, creator David Chase pitched
the show everywhere - and failed. Every network rejected it, including Fox which
had been interested enough to pay for it to be developed.

Instead, The Sopranos landed on cable subscription channel HBO. HBO gets most of
its money from subscribers, so it isn't reliant on advertisers, which means it doesn't
need to try and appeal to the greatest number of people all of the time. Ironically,
the fact that it doesn't try has meant that it has created some of US television's
most acclaimed shows.

David Chase says that HBO was the perfect fit for The Sopranos and he means
it: "There's no way that the show would have wound up on network television. And
it wasn't the nudity, profanity or violence that bothered the networks - it was the
details, the complexity, the different pacing. The Sopranos turned out be a show
you could not put on anywhere but HBO."

'Sad eyes'

The freedom of HBO meant Chase had much more control over who he could cast,
and here Gandolfini's experience was a help instead of a hindrance. "We knew that
we needed actors with New York-New Jersey roots and, whenever possible, theatre
experience as well," says Chase.

Tony Soprano is a big role. He's a powerful mob boss but his strength comes from
his very quiet, all pervasive, control.

For Gandolfini to convince his audience, you needed to believe that there was a
cauldron boiling inside Soprano, and yet also that if he chose to hurt you, it was a
very specific choice. Tony Soprano didn't explode, he destroyed - and when it
suited him. Gandolfini had the physical presence to portray a powerful man but he
also had the stage experience of subtly, slowly conveying control - building tension
and unease.But if he learnt his craft on stage, it was television which arguably
suited Gandolfini best, because it was the intimacy of close-up camerawork that
revealed how nuanced his acting really was.

"Anyone who saw him even in the smallest of his performances knows that," said
Chase. "He is one of the greatest actors of this or any time. A great deal of that
genius resided in those sad eyes."

Multi-layered

Television also worked for him, and The Sopranos, because the story built up over
the years instead of being completed in an evening. Gandolfini gained stature and
Tony Soprano gained layers as the series continued across 86 episodes, until 2007.
Over that time, Gandolfini won three Emmys for the role, plus awards from the
Golden Globes and the Screen Actors Guild.

He did initially object to the role finishing and, in particular, the controversial way
that the series ended in mid-sentence. The screen turned to black, convincing many
viewers that something had gone wrong with their TV sets or with the broadcaster.

However, the decision to cut off rather than fade out was a conscious choice by
David Chase to say that this mob world continues forever, that there was to be no
faux resolution to the story. It was another facet to the drama that perfectly suited
HBO but would never have been shown on ordinary network television.

Gandolfini said that, at first, he was confused and upset but later decided it was the
perfect ending - even if he didn't entirely understand what it meant. "You'll have to
ask David Chase that," he said. "Smarter minds than mine know the answer to
that. I thought it was a great ending."

He went on to work continuously in films afterwards - clocking up impressive
performances in films such as In the Loop and Zero Dark Thirty, but he never found
another role that quite fitted him so well as Tony Soprano.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-22985636

[Mandala]

A documentary with purpose.

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¤=[Post Update]=¤

Maybe it wasn't just a natural heart attack. Maybe he spoke of topics, they didn't want highly publicized.

[giovonni]

i surely won't forget about him ... :(


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEyhCZK2jJM

it's an American/Italian kind of thing ...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zf0ZyoUn7Vk