A sad detail about the sudden death of James Gandolfini, the 51 year old actor who many considered one of the best actors of his generation. He died yesterday in Italy while on vacation and news reports now say he was on vacation with his 13-year-old son Michael who had graduated 8th grade — and it was his son who found the stricken actor:
James Gandolfini’s teenage son called for help after discovering his father collapsed in a bathroom, according to the manager of the Italian hotel where the “The Sopranos” star was staying. The Emmy-winning actor was later pronounced dead Wednesday at age 51.
Gandolfini, who rose to fame as mob boss Tony Soprano on the hit HBO show, was still alive when the ambulance arrived, according to Antonio D’amore, who runs the Hotel Boscolo in Rome.
Gandolfini suffered a suspected heart attack in the bathroom of his hotel room at about 10 p.m. local time (4 p.m. ET) Wednesday, according to D’amore.
He said Gandolfini’s son, Michael, was with him in the room and called for help. Hotel staff rushed to the room and found the actor on the bathroom floor, D’amore said.
Workers tried to resuscitate him but he was taken to the nearby Policlinico Umberto I hospital.
Claudio Modini, head of the hospital’s emergency room, told The Associated Press that Gandolfini was declared dead at 11 p.m. (5 p.m. ET), 40 minutes after being admitted. He said an autopsy would be performed, as required by local law, with the preliminary results likely due on Friday.
Gandolfini and his family were visiting Rome prior to his scheduled appearance on Saturday as guest of honor at the Taormina Film Festival in Sicily.
It make that trite saying even more relevant: We’ll say a prayer for Gandolfini and his family.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.