James Gandolfini Biography
Published in Mr. Showbiz, October 2001
"I am still constantly surprised they didn't pick someone with a little
more, I guess, marquee value." James Gandolfini
Before he landed the role of his career, as the conflicted, shrink-going,
mother-hating New Jersey capo Tony Soprano on HBO's landmark series The
Sopranos, James Gandolfini paid his showbiz dues as a series of thuggish
lowlifes, rapists, and but of course gangsters. Sure, there
were standouts in his pre-Sopranos oeuvre such as his sadistic
hit man Virgil in True Romance, who has a bloody one-on-one session with
tougher-than-she-looks Patricia Arquette but these roles barely
distinguished him from such other stereotypically sadistic actors as
Reservoir Dogs' Michael Madsen or Strange Days' Tom Sizemore.
All that changed when The Sopranos debuted on HBO in 1999, and
the balding, overweight Gandolfini found himself an unlikely sex symbol at
the age of 38. "Usually, I'm raping women, not, you know, having them talk
nicely about me," the sheepish actor told Entertainment Weekly. "It's
not that Jim couldn't also be funny. But overall, he was just so powerful.
He could be very menacing," Chris Albrecht, President of Original
Programming for HBO, said of why the network and series creator David Chase
chose Gandolfini as their leading man. Perhaps not since screen heavy
Raymond Burr found fame as good-guy attorney Perry Mason in the 1960s has a
TV role so rescued and revived an actor's career. Audiences, already weaned
on the epic chronicles of Francis Ford Coppola's Godfather series,
couldn't get enough of the show, or of Gandolfini. Every detail on the show
became a cause for pop culture fetishism, especially the copious amounts of
Italian food that were consumed and lines like "What? No f---in' ziti?"
The first awards of his career started to come his way, with a Golden Globe,
a Screen Actors Guild award, and, after an initial snub, an Emmy. While
critics hailed the show with declarations such as "it's the greatest work of
art of the last quarter-century," Emmy voters were slower to respond to the
edgy, violent show, which more than earned its "TV-MA" rating every week.
When Gandolfini finally won the Emmy in 2000, he humbly said, in deference
to frequent Emmy winner and rival nominee Dennis Franz, "I can't really
explain this, except that I think the Academy has an affinity for slightly
overweight, bald men ? excuse me, Mr. Franz."
Of his upbringing in New Jersey, Gandolfini, the son of Italian immigrants,
said to the London Times, "I was a bit wild, but hey, I didn't stab
anyone." He graduated from Rutgers and went on to work as a bouncer and
nightclub manager. After a friend invited him to attend an acting class in
the late '80s, Gandolfini caught the acting bug and began studying at the
Actors Studio in New York. He gained steady stage experience in a number of
small venues, finally making his Broadway debut in a revival of A
Streetcar Named Desire starring Jessica Lange and Alec Baldwin.
Gandolfini played Steve Hubbell, the Kowalski's upstairs neighbor, and also
understudied the role of Blanche du Bois' suitor, Mitch. That same year, he
made his film debut in director Sidney Lumet's A Stranger Among Us,
which featured the unlikely premise of Melanie Griffith investigating a
murder in a Hasidic community of Brooklyn.
Typecasting quickly ensued for the bulky, intimidating actor, with roles as
a hit man (True Romance), a mobster (Get Shorty), a drunken
rapist (She's So Lovely), and perhaps a career-low in sadism
his creepy pornographer in Joel Schumacher's 8MM.
Occasionally, the actor got to showcase his softer side, as when he played
Geena Davis' boyfriend in 1994's Angie, or in his role as a concerned father
who begs lawyer John Travolta to represent him and his sick child against
the corporation that polluted their water in 1998's A Civil Action.
And trivia alert he played a cop in 1997's Night Falls on
Manhattan, which also featured the future "Uncle Junior," Dominic
Chianese, as a no-nonsense judge. After The Sopranos made him a
wanted man, Gandolfini found himself working with such A-listers as Julia
Roberts and Brad Pitt in the 2001 release The Mexican. The role
subtly tweaked his now larger-than-life gangster persona, and, according to
many a critic, he stole the film from his higher-paid, more photogenic
stars. Later that year, he co-starred with screen icon Robert Redford in
The Last Castle, as a cruel military prison commander who comes up
against a formidable opponent in Redford's imprisoned general. "He's done
some of my favorite movies of all time. I've always wanted to work with
him," an intimidated Gandolfini told EW, pointing out that Redford,
who has a shirtless scene in the film, is "in great shape, isn't he? And
here I am, 20 years younger, and I look like a jelly donut in a camouflage
outfit." In 2001, Gandolfini also top-lined the Coen brother's
black-and-white ode to film noir, The Man Who Wasn't There as a department store manager trysting with the married Frances McDormand.
The actor's busy schedule forced him to drop out of another high-profile
project, Catch Me If You Can, which will star Leonardo DiCaprio, and
be directed by Steven Spielberg. After Spielberg came on board the project,
the role once earmarked for Gandolfini, that of an FBI agent on the trail of
Leo's teenage con man, was reassigned to Tom Hanks.
Although he is committed to The Sopranos through a planned fifth
season, Gandolfini is reportedly tiring of his small-screen alter ego's
violent ways. "I don't think I will do a Mafia character again," he was
quoted as telling the London Telegraph in May of 2001. "I want to get
away from the violence a little bit, because it is starting to bother me
personally."
Sharon Knolle
Copyright ©2001 Mr. Showbiz
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