Shocking news this morning. Actor James Gandolfini who is best remembered for playing mafia boss Tony Soprano, died of a suspected heart attack in Italy late Wednesday evening.

He was due to attend the Taormina festival in Sicily; I guess if your time is up he couldn’t have chosen a more fitting place to end his days. David Chase, creator of one of TVs most popular US dramas, The Sopranos told TMZ.com “(James) was a genius. Anyone who ever saw him in even the smallest of his performances knows that”. Tributes have been flooding in from the film industry greats.

Gandolfini was born in New Jersey on September 18, 1961. At school he was named the ‘class flirt’ in the school yearbook. He achieved a Bachelor of Arts degree in communication studies at Rutgers University, which I’m sure helped him in his part time job of bouncer at the campus bar.

He won three Emmys for his role as Tony Soprano and although he tried to get away from being typecast as ‘the heavy’ he won acclaim in various movies such as ‘True Romance’, ‘The Mexican’ (where he played a gay hitman), ‘Terminal Velocity’ (as a Russian hitman) and a mobster’s bodyguard in ‘Get Shorty’.

Gandolfini also voiced one of the characters in the 2009 children’s fantasy ‘Where the Wild Things Are’. Personally I liked him as the angry cop in the supernatural 1998 thriller ‘Fallen’ with Denzel Washington. However, it was the much troubled crime boss Tony Soprano that had us glued to the TV from 1999 to 2007. He was the guy that we knew we shouldn’t root for in a ‘Dexter’ sort of way. We know what he is doing is very bad but we also know he is the only reason we tune in to watch the show. Plus I’m told that he also that he had great sex appeal.

We have lost a great actor at such a young age. I’m sure he had so much more to offer.