played a softer character or doing eight shows a week on broadway not an easy thing. so he was still interested in being a performer. his co-stars and colleagues that worked with him had nothing but praise for his work ethic. any sense of who he admired in the business? you know, when i talked to him, he was he had just done a movie with chris stewart. he said he was interested in working with her, not because of twilight but because he had seen her in an earlier movie into the wild. and he had this dedication, he was interested in the movie because it was made by jake scott, who was a nephew of tony scott, who gave him his first role. he was dedicated to that relationship. he wanted to pursue that. so i m sure he had no shortage of opportunity. elena, appreciate your
life, has died. he was in rome when he suffered what is believed to be a heart attack. gandolfini, just 51, went from character actor to superstar. david chase had this to say. he was a genius. anyone that saw him knows that. he is one of the greatest actors of this or any time. a great deal of that genius resided in those sad eyes. we ll be talking tonight to the people who knew him, who admired his work and watched him become a folk hero in the garden state and around the world. let s begin with larry king, who joins us by phone, and dr. sanjay gupta. dr. gupta, i want to begin with you. we need to be careful. we re just get thing information in, but 51 years old, three months short of 52 years old, indications are a heart attack or stroke. what would your questions be? well, clearly this is young to have a heart attack, even
control, more vulnerable, more child like and what have you, he would chuckle and say, you really want me to do that? he had a great comic instinct. but he realized the audience would get a kick, i think, out of seeing him do these other things and showing that other side. but he didn t find it easy to get there. so it was a real act of courage. i can t emphasize that enough. he pleaded with me on one occasion to be allowed to leave the show, when we were still in rehearsals. he thought he wouldn t be able to just live up to the rest of the company. i hope he wouldn t mind me sharing that. it was a very private thing. but it was a good indication of the courage that he showed. all of these things, the sensitivity, passion, the courage, the brutal self-criticism.
this is sad and shocking news tonight. when you think of james gandolfini and the full variety of his work, not just tony sparano, what runs through your mind on this sad eving? well, that s the thing. tony sparano will always be his legacy, but he had a diverse career. he had a good touch with comedy, as well as the ability to inhabit different dramatic roles. i saw him in god of carnage in los angeles, so he really was an actor of many talents. one of the things that perhaps many people don t know is his love of the american military and the veteran. you produced a documentary about the difficulties of troops coming home from iraq and a documentary on troops dealing with earlier wars dealing with ptsd. is that something that anyone had any idea how he came to that
let s begin with larry king, who joins us by phone, and dr. sanjay gupta. dr. gupta, i want to begin with you. we re just get thing information in, but 51 years old, three months short of 52 years old, indications are a heart attack or stroke. what would your questions be? well, clearly this is young to have a heart attack, even when you have preexisting conditions. average age of someone having a first heart attack is usually in the mid 60s. john, as you re suggesting, it s very important here, this very limited information that we know, and so the medical personnel, people trying to figure this out on the ground there are going to want to know are there any other potential risk factors here? if this was in fact heart disease, heart attacks typically cause what s known as cardiac arrest. heart attack is caused by not