James Gandolfini Page 3

An Italian paramedic has been branded a thief accused of stealing a $3,000 Rolex watch from the late 'Sopranos' actor James Gandolfini as he lay dying from a major heart attack in Rome back in 2013. The trial began this week and notes that the watch was noticed to be missing by those close to him soon after his death.

Paramedic implicated in James Gandolfini's missing watch case

A 43-year-old man named Claudio Bevilacqua is on trial for the robbery of a Rolex Submariner reportedly in the possession of James Gandolfini when he died on vacation in Rome, Italy on June 27th 2013. The paramedic was one of the first on the scene when Gandolfini had his heart attack, and it is not yet known if the watch was physically removed from the actor's body or if it was taken from elsewhere in his Boscolo Exedra Hotel room, located in Piazza della Repubblica, where he was staying ahead of his appearance at the Taormina Film Fest in Sicily.

Continue reading: Was James Gandolfini's Rolex Stolen By Paramedic As He Died?

James Gandolfini’s death came as a huge surprise. His generosity, as displayed in his will wasn’t such a surprise, such was his reputation as a modest man. The father of the box set generation, giving people reason to invest so many hours into character, Gandolfini’s legacy is much bigger than the money he left behind. Here are his best, non-Soprano roles.

Gandolfini with his Sopranos co-stars Michael Imperioli and Steve Schirripa

True Romance: Gandolfini effectively ‘broke’ into Hollywood with his role in True Romance as Virgil. A thug, Virgil’s defining moment was his epic fight with Alabama, played by Patricia Arquette, which culminates in her plunging a corkscrew through his foot. Gandolfini spoke about this scene on appearance on Inside The Actor’s Studio.

Continue reading: Why James Gandolfini's Gift Is Bigger Than His Will - His Best (Non-Sopranos) Moments

James Gandolfini, the late actor who set a new standard for television performances as Tony Soprano in HBO's The Sopranos, shared his $70 million estate between family and friends, Manhattan Surrogate's Court heard yesterday (July 1, 2013). Gandolfini left millions of dollars to his nearest and dearest, including $200,000 to both his personal secretary and assistant.

James Gandolfini Was Worth $70 Million At The Time of His Death

The biggest chunk of his estate will go to Gandolfini's beloved children, Michael, 13, and daughter Liliana Ruth, 8 months - both receiving millions. His wife Deborah Lin and two sisters will also receive large chunks of the state, worth $70 million when the actor died in Italy on June 16, aged just 51. 

Continue reading: James Gandolfini's Will Shows True Extent Of Sopranos Man's Generosity

A British tabloid claimed that Alec Baldwin's wife Hilaria Baldwin tweeted during the funeral of Soprano's star James Gandolfini. When Alec Baldwin heard about the article in The Daily Mail he launched into an irate and homophobic tirade on Twitter. 

Baldwin's pregnant wife, Hilaria, did tweet about the funeral and addressed one of her posts to James Gandolfini or as she referred to him 'Jimmy'. As The Mail pointed out this post was between two considerably chirpier ones including discussing recipes and asking advice from her followers about anniversary presents.

Unfortunately, as the time is recorded on Twitter, The Mail does have a point, evidently upon arriving at the funeral or even during the course of it Hilaria was on her phone. 

Continue reading: Alec Baldwin Rants On Twitter About Wife's Alleged Phone Use At Gandolfini Funeral

The funeral of Soprano's star James Gandolfini was held today (27th June 2013) at St John the Divine Catholic Church in New York. A private wake was held yesterday (Wednesday 26th June) in New Jersey for family members and close friends. 

Representing the cast and crew of The Sopranos was actress Aida Turturra and creator David Chase, who gave a eulogy. Gandolfini's widow Deborah Lin Gandolfini and two close family friends also spoke. 

The late James Gandolfini, pictured here attending the 8th Starlit Benefit Gala, New York, 10th June 2013

Continue reading: James Gandolfini's Funeral - Who Was In Attendance?

Broadway will dim its lights on Wednesday (June 26, 2013) in tribute to actor James Gandolfini, the Tony award nominee who died in Italy last week aged 51. The Broadway League announced that theatre marquees will go dark for one minute at 8pm, reports the Los Angeles Times.

Gandolfini was best known for playing New Jersey mobster Tony Soprano on HBO's The Sopranos - considered the greatest television drama of all time - though he also excelled on the stage. In 2009, the actor earned a best actor Tony Award nod for his role in Yasmina Reza's comedy God of Carnage, which he produced two years later at Los Angeles' Ahmanson Theatre. Previously, Gandolfini had appeared in A Streetcar Named Desire (1992) opposite Jessica Lange and a youthful Alec Baldwin. 

"Whether on screen or on a Broadway stage, [Gandolfini] made every role believable and seemingly effortless," Charlotte St. Martin, the Broadway League's executive director, said in a statement.

Continue reading: Lights Go Out On Broadway For James Gandolfini

James Gandolfini had his remains flown back to America at the tail end of last week, with a private jet flying the late actor into Newark airport late on Sunday (June 23) night. He will be buried and a memorial service will be held in his name later this week, with the actor being laid to rest on Thursday (June 27) during a traditional Catholic ceremony.

The ceremony is due to take place at Manhattan's Church of St. John the Divine in Morningside Heights, with further memorial services set to take place in the coming weeks. On Sunday, at around 5:40 p.m local time in Rome, The lates actor's body left Leonardo da Vinci-Fiumicino Airport for Newark, a large black coffin containing the stocky actor being loaded onto a private jet around an hour earlier. It is believed that Secretary of State John Kerry, ex-President Bill Clinton and former-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton all worked behind the scenes to ensure Gandolfini had a speedy return back to the USA.

The Sopranos star died following a heart attack in Rome last Wednesday (June 19) while on vacation with his teenage son. There was no indication that the actor's time might soon in the lead-up to his death either, with the actor suffering from no known ailments or health issues at the time. A family spokesperson for the Gandolfini's, Michael Kobold, said, “He was extremely happy. He was healthy. There was nothing wrong with him, so this came as a surprise and a total shock.”

Continue reading: James Gandolfini's Body Arrives Home; Funeral Proceedings To Take Place This Week

Gandolfini reactions flood the web. The death of James Gandolfini - the man who reinvented the gangster image on television with his portrayal as Tony Soprano in The Sopranos - cause shockwaves to ripple across the entertainment industry and even further afield, as social networking sites and blogs became over-run with tributes for the late actor.

Gandolfini will no doubt go down in history as one of television's finest actors, and will probably be remembered as one of the finest character actors to grace any screen, and the sheer rate of well-wishes sent on his behalf goes some way to cementing his legacy - which isn't bad for someone who only got into acting to keep a friend company and to pass the time. 

The man who recognised Jim's talent and gave him his biggest break of all, Sopranos creator David Chase, left a particularly heartfelt message when the news of his passing broke, and he spoke lovingly of his "brother" in the moments after his passing.

Continue reading: Gandolfini Reactions: James Gandolfini Is Mourned Across The Globe Following Passing

James Gandolfini’s sudden death was met with shock and surprise from both his fans and the acting community – many of whom were intertwined. From TV to film, his performances – usually as a ‘hard man’ but with room for comedic flexibility – memorized both auteurs and audiences alike. In memory of the great man, here are his best moments on screen.

It would be extraordinary not to start with The Sopranos; Gandolfini’s turn as the matriarchal mob boss Mafioso Tony Soprano will always be his most famous role. The HBO masterpiece is often cited as the best TV drama of all time, and he, the most important and well-acted TV character ever. Terrifying yet hilarious, Gandolfini brought an elegance and charm to this brutish role, injecting a modicum of charisma to an otherwise awful man: easily his finest achievement.

James Gandolfini will be sorely missed

Continue reading: Remembering A Gentle Giant – James Gandolfini’s Best Moments In Film An TV

The acting world sighs a breath of sadness and condolence today, as one of its greats, James Gandolfini, has reportedly passed away in Italy. He was aged 51. The cause of death was a heart attack, although there are no confirmed sources yet. “Everyone is in tears,” the source close to the him said, according to The New York Daily News.

Gandolfini was, of course, known for his imperious role as Tony Sopranos in the hit HBO drama, The Sopranos. For most people, his was not only best known for this role, but synonymous with it because of his immersion coupled with his rare TV and movie performances. He won both the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series and The Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series three times. After the Sopranos, Gandolfini enjoyed a hilarious role in The Loop and a voice acting role in Where The Wild Things Are, showing his adaptability as an actor. Previous to The Sopranos, he starred as a henchmen in True Romance – his fight with Patricia Arquette is now infamous - and Get Shorty. Most recently, he was seen in The Incredible Burt Wonderstone and Zero Dark Thirty.

Gandolfini – who is survived by his wife, Deborah Lin and a son – has already gone down in TV folklore for his portrayal of the matriarchal mob boss Tony Soprano.

Continue reading: James Gandolfini Dead Aged 51 – Sopranos Actor Reportedly Passes Away In Italy

Last night (2nd June), the Writers Guild of America (the WGA) unveiled its list of the 101 best written television shows in history voted for by members, who are split into east (WGAE) and western (WGAW) guilds in an online ballot.

Following the WGA's 2005 '101 Best Screenplays', the new list saw New Jersey mobster drama The Sopranos (created by David Chase) top the TV Guide Magazine-sponsored list. After debuting in 1999, the show ran for six seasons and 86 episodes before ending in 2007. The show, starring James Gandolfini as lead-character Anthony "Tony" Soprano, has received glowing critical acclaim over the years with New Yorker editor, David Remnick proclaiming the show to be "the richest achievement in the history of television."

Indeed, this is not the first time the highly lauded series has topped a 'best of' chart, with previous rankings including TV Guide's 'Top 50 TV Shows of All Time', and 'Channel 4's Greatest Television Series of All Time.'

Continue reading: The Sopranos Named Best Written TV Show Ever: Do You Agree?

Based on the 1974 novel 'Cogan's Trade', Killing Them Softly stars Brad Pitt, Richard Jenkins, James Gandolfini and Ray Liotta. The movie is also a reunion between Brad Pitt and Andrew Dominik has both written and directed the movie. He also directed The Assassination of Jessie James by the Coward Robert Ford in 2007. Reviews for that were fairly similar to the critical reception for Killing Them Softly- the warmer side of luke warm.

Killing Them Softly is a grisly crime thriller, based around a mob poker game gone back and the subsequent investigation. The New York Times said it's "more concerned with conjuring an aura of meaningfulness than with actually meaning anything," and the Village Voice thought it repetitive and lacking subtlety, apparently it "shows, and then tells, tells, and tells again, its vibrant conjuring of contemporary cynicism felled by Dominik's lack of faith in his audience's ability to connect thematic dots." It's not all bad news though and Brad Pitt's performance has been receiving high praise. Rolling Stone said that "The acting is aces, especially Pitt mixing it up with the superb James Gandolfini, as an assassin losing his game to hooch and hookers. They make this movie a potently nasty provocation." The New Yorker agreed, focusing on a single scene they said, "One of the best things in the movie is a conversation between Pitt and Jenkins, on a torrential day, seated in a nondescript car beneath a bridge."

Dominik has made only three movies and they've all been in a similar vein, all falling under the umbrella banner of 'crime thriller', however neither The Assassination of Jesse James nor this year's Killing Them Softly seems to have met the high standards set by the 2000 movie Chopper, for which the young director won numerous awards. Chopper was created with a heavy dose of humour to offset the brutality and it's that lighthearted approach that seems to be lacking in his other two ventures. Nevertheless, it's up for release tomorrow (30th Nov 2012) and is worth seeing if only for Pitt's performance. 

The full release of Brad Pitt's Killing Them Softly has quietly crept up, six months after it premiered to strong reviews at the Cannes Film Festival. The crime-drama reunited The Assassination of Jesse James director Andrew Dominik with Pitt and was originally set for a September 21 release.

The first thing to note is that Killing Them Softly - about an enforcer who is hired to restore order after a mob-protected poker game is robbed - is a Weinstein Company movie. Harvey Weinstein is known for his Oscars game of chess, swapping and changing release dates and masterminding promotional campaigns to give his movies the best possible of chance of winning golden statuettes. Though last year's Margaret Thatcher film The Iron Lady was regarded as a dud by critics, Meryl Streep still managed to walk away with the Best Actress gong, despite Viola Davis' stunning performance in The Help. The power of Weinstein.

Anyway, according to Indiewire.com, Killing Them Softly switched to a November 30 release date for maximum Oscars impact. Weinstein decided that he wanted to roll out Paul Thomas Anderson's The Master closer to his festival premieres. Which is odd, because since making the decision, The Master and Silver Linings Playbook have emerged as the company's biggest Oscars hopes. At best, it looks as though James Gandolfini could snag a nomination for Best Supporting Actor for Killing. Even Lawless seems to have a better chance of winning an Oscar than Dominik's movie.

Continue reading: Is The Academy Set To Ignore Brad Pitt's Killing Them Softly?

Brad Pitt is on the promotional trail for his crime-thriller Killing Them Softly - a movie accused of being left-wing propaganda - and has been discussing his own views on the state of America. MTV News quizzed the Hollywood star on the progressive results in the recent elections and in particularly the subjects of gay marriage and drugs.

Pitt has made no secret of his left leaning political views (somewhat at odds with his mother) though went into more detail this week. "Equality, absolutely, that's what defines us. It's what makes us great," he said in relation to Maine, Maryland and Washington legalizing gay marriage. "If it doesn't sit well with your religion, let your God sort it out in the end, but that's us. We're equal." During a recent interview with the Hollywood Reporter, Pitt admitted to smoking plenty of marijuana in the 1990s, saying, "I was hiding out from the celebrity thing, I was smoking way too much dope, I was sitting on the couch and just turning into a doughnut and I really got irritated with myself." But what does he think of America's approach to drugs? "I do believe that we should be responsible for our own choices in talking about the drug laws, and that the drug war is an ultimate failure and that the billions and billions of dollars that we've committed to it, there's got to be a better way," he mused. Pushed on the debate of legalization, Pitt explained, "I don't believe in incarceration over education - don't get me started. But there's real damage to drugs; that is not the same as with gay marriage. Since the last round [of elections], they've been linked in every article. I find that curious."

Killing Them Softly - starring Pitt, Ray Liotta and James Gandolfini - hits theaters in the U.S. on November 30, 2012.

Continue reading: Brad Pitt On Why The Drug War Is "An Ultimate Failure"

Back in Black: Brad Pitt Attends the Premiere of the Long Awaited 'Killing Them Softly'

Brad Pitt arrived at a low-key premiere for his upcoming movie Killing Them Softly at the SVA Theater in New York City on Monday evening (November 26, 2012). Wearing an understated ensemble of black jeans, black t-shirt and black leather jacket, the Hollywood star let his female co-stars and various others celebrities take the limelight on the red carpet.

It's been a pretty busy year for Pitt, who was a mainstay over the movie festival season, particularly at Cannes. Killing Them Softly went down well with critics in France, though the film seems to have taken an age to make it to the big screen. Pitt plays Jackie Cogan, an enforcer hired to restore order and three dumb guys rob a Mob protected card game, causing the local criminal economy to collapse. Robbie Collin of The Telegraph said, "Killing Them Softly has the rigor and poise of the great American crime pictures of the 1970s." So far, Oscar talk has been limited, though Pitt won't have had time to get caught up in the awards' season speculation having spent the summer in London shooting World War Z. "I didn't know it was Thanksgiving until like midday. Until [the] afternoon.When you're overseas, they don't celebrate it in England," he told People magazine.

Continue reading: Pictures: Brad Pitt Lets Ladies Take The Limelight At Killing Them Softly Premiere

Hbo fans will be excited to hear that one of networks biggest and most memorable stars, James Gandolfini, is to return in a pilot for a new drama, reports U.S.A Today.

Gandolfini is of course most famous for his portrayal of Tony Soprano in, arguably, HBO’s most successful show of all time, The Sopranos. He is now set to reignite his love affair with the paid-for TV channel by starring in the pilot for a new adaptation of Criminal Justice, a BBC series created by Peter Moffat that – like another of HBO’s big hitters, The Wire - follows a single case across an entire season. Screenwriter, Steven Zaillian - responsible for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - and novelist Richard Price are writers and executive producers on the new project, and Zaillian will direct the pilot episode, which will be filmed this fall in New York City in a co-production with BBC Worldwide.

Inevitably, talk of Gandolfini’s return has sparked debate as to whether fans are in line for ‘the new Sopranos,’ but can Criminal Justice be as good as the gangster show? Well, it’s hard to tell, considering the pilot hasn’t even been filmed yet, but it’ll have to be some show to take on David Chase’s New Jersey behemoth, which is often cited as the best TV drama of all time. No pressure, then.

British actors Julie Christie and Daniel Day-Lewis have won the top acting prizes at the Screen Actors' Guild (SAG) awards.

While Christie took the best actress gong for her acclaimed portrayal of a woman facing dementia in Sarah Polley's Away From Her, Day-Lewis was rewarded for his stunning role as an amoral oil prospector in Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood.

Though the awards season has been jeopardised by the ongoing industrial action by the Writers' Guild of America (WGA), the SAG awards were held without a hitch after an interim agreement was signed between the two unions, allowing acting talent to attend the ceremony without having to cross picket lines.

Christie - who is nominated for the best actress Academy award for her part in Away From Her - paid tribute to the SAG, adding to The Associated Press: "It's lovely to receive an award from your own union, especially at a time when we're being so forcefully reminded how important unions are."

And Day-Lewis dedicated his award to the late Heath Ledger, who was tragically found dead in his New York apartment last week.

"In Brokeback Mountain he was unique, he was perfect," Day-Lewis said while accepting his trophy.

"That scene in the trailer at the end of the film is as moving as anything I think I've ever seen."

The 50-year-old added backstage that he had never met Ledger but had been profoundly affected by the actor's death.

"I thought he was beautiful. I just had a very strong feeling I would have liked him very much as a man," he said. "I admired him very much. I'm absolutely certain he would have done many wonderful things in his life."

Javier Bardem took the best supporting actor prize for his role as psychotic killer Anton Chigurh in the Coen Brothers' No Country For Old Men, which also won the award for outstanding cast in a motion picture.

With The Sopranos finally coming to an end, leads James Gandolfini and Edie Falco claimed the best actor and best actress prizes for TV dramas, while Alec Baldwin and Tina Fey, the stars of NBC's 30 Rock, took the comedy equivalents.

And another NBC series, The Office - an adaptation of Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant's Golden Globe-winning sitcom - won the award for best cast in a comedy programme.

Continue reading: Brits Julie Christie And Daniel Day-lewis Take Sag Awards