Family, Friends and Co-stars of James Gandolfini are shocked and saddened by news of the sudden death of the Hollywood heavyweight who won multiple Emmy Awards for his role as mob boss Tony Soprano in the smash HBO series “The Sopranos.” Gandolfini died of a heart attack yesterday in Rome.
He was 51.
Gandolfini was due to appear at the Taormina Film Festival in Sicily this weekend and had been vacationing with his sister and his 13-year-old son when he suffered the heart attack. The three had just returned to the Boscolo Luxury Hotel Exedra after sightseeing and eating dinner when Gandolfini went into the bathroom and didn’t come out, a source said.
His sister went in and found him unconscious on the bathroom floor, the source said. She called an ambulance, but he was pronounced dead at the hospital. NBC reported the star was found around 10 p.m. local time.
The Westwood, NJ-born actor played Soprano in the critically acclaimed series, which ran from 1999 to 2007 and ended with the screen suddenly turning black in the final scene, with Tony’s fate a mystery.
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