Goodbye, Tony: Gandolfini’s Soprano Will Be Remembered As TV’s Greatest Character by Joe Concha | 9:31 pm, June 19th, 2013 column » 23 comments View attachment 9420 James Gandolfini hadn’t been relevant in six years. Sure, he’s had small roles here and there, most notably for about five minutes as CIA Director Leon Panetta in Zero Dark Thirty. But ever since we last saw Tony Soprano looking up to see his daughter, Meadow, enter a local Jersey restaurant before the series (and perhaps Tony himself) suddenly went to black, it was never going to happen for the Gandolfini. He would always be Tony Soprano. To cast him as anything else would be a futile exercise. That’s what happens when you’ve established yourself as the most iconic character in the history of television. And when hearing the news of the 51-year-old actor’s death—it was one of those few moments where you’re genuinely stunned when first hearing it. Hyperbole? Overreaction to a shocking death? Maybe, but it’s still hard to come up with anyone else who had the impact Tony Soprano did for the six incredible seasons The Sopranos was on the air (Archie Bunker, Hawkeye Pierce, J.R. Ewing, George Costanza, Carrie Bradshaw, Jack Bauer, and Ari Gold immediately come to mind… and yes, I know I’m missing a few). And there’s a reason why The Writer’s Guild of America recently named The Sopranos #1 on its list of the Top 10 written television shows of all-time. Ultimately, it begins and ends with Gandolfini’s pitch-perfect portrayal of a New Jersey mob boss who was in constant conflict over his real-life family and organized crime family. The Sopranos had it all: Unpredictable plots, sharp humor (well-timed and never overdone), tremendous acting, writing, realism, and most of all (and perhaps most importantly) an utter disregard to follow a plot formula. What happened to the Russian Interior Decorator/Interior Ministry member in the South Jersey Pine Barrens? David Chase—the show’s creator and lead writer—decided to never address it in a later episode. He sought to imitate life: Not everything is wrapped in a bow and given a happy or sad ending. Sometimes, stuff just happens… And in the middle of it all was Tony: A guy who constantly cheated on his wife, murdered his best friend (Big p*ssy, after figuring out he was an FBI informant), was almost offed by his own mother, and sought psychiatric help (with the flawlessly-cast Lorraine Bracco of Goodfellas fame) to make sense of it all. Gandolfini was a Jersey guy, went to school at Rutgers, he didn’t have to morph into a role Daniel Day-Lewis style. He was Jersey… looked and sounded like a mob boss… it was a completely genuine and honest performance every Sunday night from 1999 to 2007. And despite all the transgressions, all the imperfections his character Tony had, it was impossible to root against him. Personally, I read almost every theory after the maddening, masterful final episode to attempt to determine whether Tony had died, or if it was simply another unsolved mystery courtesy of Mr. Chase. I, like many others, hoped Tony didn’t get whacked by the Members Only-jacket-wearing-assassin. My initial theory was that Tony, who throughout that final scene was distracted by every sound, was constantly measuring up every person around him, was always under mental duress, would be forced to live in constant suspicion and deal with that anxiety for the rest of his life. That would be his price…although I eventually resigned myself to the fact that the result was likely the former. And now the man who played him, the man who won numerous Emmys in the process and the only man who could have ever played the part, has died of a suspected heart attack at the way, way too soon at the age of 51. He will be missed. But his legacy in the form of Tony Soprano…will always live on. R.I.P.
