Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Remembering James Gandolfini

     Like many others, Gandolfini's portrayal of Tony Soprano made me fall in love with The Sopranos.
     Due to Gandolfini, I watched Tony Soprano and saw Everyman - a man struggling to maintain a business in the face of fierce competition while balancing family and dealing with self-doubt.  He is a boss with no one to talk to, who has employees of varying talents and motivations that test his management skills and often fail in the tasks given to them that call him in the middle of the night at inconvenient times with their problems.  He has a sister who is always causing him problems and he has to deal with all of the problems associated with an aging, difficult mother.   In short, Gandolfini made Tony human.
     I was smiling thinking of these things driving to work soon after Gandolfin's passing and I was wondering how I could describe my feelings about them when I heard a tribute to him on NPR.  The program was so right on that I feel a need to share it.  Here it is.  Listen to it.



If you have never seen The Sopranos, you should rent or buy the DVDs and watch them.  Yes, there are a few episodes that are difficult to watch but there are many more absolutely great ones.  My favorites are Christopher's drug intervention and Tony playing Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin full blast 24 hours per day offshore of a house that he wants to buy to convince the owners to sell it to him.  What's yours?

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