FROM LAST SEPTEMBER’S HBO AFTER PARTY FOLLOWING THE EMMY AWARDS:

James Gandolfini is a happy man, I can report. He came to HBO’s big gala last night with not one but two wives. Yes, the once and always Tony Soprano has movies, projects, a baby about to be born and a happy family. He also told me he’s living in Los Angeles because his 13 year old son loves it. “We’re making it all work.” And indeed they are as first wife, Marcy, had just stopped his table to say hello and was leaving as I arrived.

Gandolfini and second wife, Deborah Lin, are expecting a baby girl in about three weeks. So that’s excellent news. They haven’t quite settled on a name yet. but both of the choices they mentioned sounded pretty good.

On the career front: I can tell you exclusively that Gandolfini is working on a comedy project with Steve Carell, from Carell’s production company. It’s called “The Bone Men” right now. The pair play paleontologists from the late 1800s. “It’s very funny,” says Gandolini. There are rumors that Fox2000 is interested, as well as HBO.

Meanwhile Gandolfini is working with HBO on a pilot called “Criminal Justice,” announced last week. And he’s about to be seen in “Killing Them Softly” with Brad Pitt. After a couple of tries, this is the first film the pair will have worked in together that’s an actual hit. He laughed when I reminded him that he said long ago every time the two actors were in a movie together, it bombed. No more.

The motto: to paraphrase “The Sopranos”: “Don’t stop believin”…Gandolfini always played being Tony Soprano the right away, shying away from becoming so intertwined with his character that he’d be stuck forever doing “Sopranos” conventions. He can do anything. And will.

“Sopranos” creator David Chase and co-star Steve van Zandt have each released statements on the passing of their friend, James Gandolfini. Even though you can read them other places, I’m reprinting them here. (Naturally, THR makes it seem like they’re exclusive to them.) Anyway. I think most of “The Sopranos” extended family is in shock. And van Zandt is just starting a tour from Scotland with Bruce Springsteen. His email came from there. So that’s not easy. More to come. And there are plenty of reactions on Twitter from all kinds of people. I just ran into Alec Baldwin on my walk home and he was beside himself. I keep thinking of Gandolfini’s constant ups and downs with weight, and joking about it. And now it seems he died in a restaurant in Sicily. From heaven to heaven.

Chase:

“He was a genius. Anyone who saw him even in the smallest of his performances 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. I remember telling him many times, ‘You don’t get it. You’re like Mozart.’ There would be silence at the other end of the phone. For Deborah and Michael and Lilliana, this is crushing. And it’s bad for the rest of the world. He wasn’t easy sometimes. But he was my partner, he was my brother in ways I can’t explain and never will be able to explain.”

van Zandt:

I have lost a brother and a best friend. The world has lost one of the greatest actors of all time. Maureen and I send our deepest sympathy and love to Deborah, Michael, Lily, and all of Jimmy’s family.

Stevie Van Zandt
Loch Lomond, Scotland

“Sopranos” star James Gandolfini has died of an apparent heart attack today. He was 51 and attending the Taormina Film Festival in Italy. Gandolfini was supposedly in a restaurant with his son. He went to the rest room and when he didn’t come out, the door had to broken down.

This is a tragedy for his friends and his fans. Chris Albrecht, who ran HBO during the heyday of The Sopranos, told me “He was a member of our family. He was a great guy. He had his demons like everyone else, but he was a great guy.”

In the last year I had a long talk with Gandolfini. He was very excited because he’d resolved all his family issues– his wife and his ex wife made peace, he was close to his son, and had a baby on the way.

Even though Gandolfini was shy in person and not at all like Tony Soprano, he and I had many conversations over the years about fame. He didn’t care for it, and tried to remain low key as possible.

He was always worried about being typecast as Tony Soprano, so he took roles that were small, or unusual. He appears right now in a movie that I think is available on VOD called “Violet and Daisy” and he’s wonderful in it. Some of his other key movie roles were “Welcome to the Rileys” and the Coen Brothers’ “The Man Who Wasn’t There.”

More recently he starred in Sopranos creator David Chase’s “Not Fade Away” as a frustrated father. It was excellent work. Chase and he were bonded, as were most of the show’s cast, as a family.

Gandolfini was also incredibly loyal. He worked over and over with friends who were actors. One of his favorites was Aida Turturro, who played his sister Janice on “The Sopranos.” He also showed up every time Steve van Zandt had an event in New York. Gandolfini was so low profile that sometimes people didn’t recognize him.

More to come… Condolences to his family, who must be beside themselves..

I just heard that Chet Flippo passed away. This is what I can tell you: I was lucky enough to hire Chet to write for me in the late 1980s when I edited Fame magazine. Most of the really good writers in town were signed up Vanity Fair at that point, and everyone else was busy. Chet had been a real idol of mine. When I was in high school, he and Ben Fong-Torres were the kings of Rolling Stone. This is when Rolling Stone really mattered. They, and later Cameron Crowe and Jon Landau, were the bylines you gobbled up. So when Chet said he would do interviews and profiles for me at Fame, it was like a dream come true. Wherever you sent him, whoever he saw, the work came back as perfection. Also, he had a strong Southern voice that lent his pieces an extra charm. Over a three year period we had endless conversations about music, about the old Rolling Stone, about everything. I was working 24 hour days for three years; he saved me. There was no one else like him. During that time I got to edit a number of people who’ve passed on since: David Halberstam, Spalding Gray, Harry Crews. But Chet was my hero. I am so sorry he’s gone. Look up his pieces for Rolling Stone. He was part of a group that invented what we now call Classic Rock. Chet, it’s too soon.

http://www.cmt.com/news/country-music/1709295/chet-flippo-legendary-journalist-dies-at-age-69.jhtml

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s eldest son Maddox plays a kid zombie in “World War Z.” But you won’t see him in the movie unless you look very closely. “They didn’t want to show children zombies in the movie,” Brad told me at the London premiere of “WWZ.” “So we filmed him in the shadows.” It’s just as well, those zombies have some bad dental problems!

Maddox and brother Pax were the stars of the London premiere, zipping around with friends and having a ball. Did the movie scare them? Not at all, they said. They’re kids. They’ve seen worse!

So far “World War Z” is holding its own critics-wise, with the really smart and tough guys– Richard Corliss of Time, and the hard to please Rex Reed of the New York Observer–send in positive reviews. Rotten Tomatoes has it at 74% today as “World War Z” heads to its Friday opening.

Meantime, Paramount Pictures is keeping its expectations in check for the opening weekend after “Man of Steel” and “Iron Man 3” broke records. “World War Z” is not going to break records. “It’s not a brand name yet and it’s not a franchise,” explained one insider. “So you have to remember it’s an original movie. A $40 million opening would be terrific.”

Every afternoon I got press updates from the Los Angeles district attorney’s office and they’re usually about miscellaneous crimes committed by people we’ve never heard of. This afternoon’s press release was about Edward Furlong, who’s now 35 but was the child star, in 1991, of “Terminator 2.” He’s always in trouble of some kind, but this is bad.

Furlong was arraigned today for assaulting his girlfriend and threatening her if she called the police. He already had two misdemeanor charges against him. If he’s convicted this time he’ll go to state prison for four years. His bail was set at $100,000.

Furlong is alleged to have assaulted the girlfriend on May 21st when he violated a restraining order meant to keep him away from her.

I thought maybe this guy hasn’t worked in a long time, etc. But it turns out, according to the imdb, he’s worked consistently. He has a lot of credits, several each year, on TV and on the B movie circuit. Nevertheless, according to the release, Furlong “was charged with dissuading a witness by force or threat, assault by means to likely to produce great bodily injury and vandalism over $400 — all felonies — and disobeying a domestic restraining order, a misdemeanor.”

Here’s an advance look at “Ray Donovan” from Showtime. Starring Liev Schreiber and Jon Voight. It’s edited — but you can get the gist of it. Let me know what you think!