“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!

Fans of the cult NBC hit “Community” will be happy. Creator Dan Harmon is coming back. But first he has to make a public mea culpa. And so he has, on his blog today. You can read it all at www.danharmon.com/tumblr.com. I think this is what used to happen in Czarist Russia. Anyway, here are some excerpts:

It Won’t Happen Again Again

My apolotweets might not have fit the scale of the crime for some, so I’m following them up with one of my patented apoloblogs.  I want to clarify, I’m apoloblogging in an effort to counteract pain I caused other people.  Not because I think what I have to say is important – this is one of those days when I’m definitely fantasizing about getting less attention.  And less money, and less oxygen, and, like, getting run over by a bus and stuff.  But while I accidentally have your attention, I want to use it to say things I would have and should have said instead of what I did say…

…I went to bed feeling great, woke up and started work on season five of Community with our exciting season five staff.  I took them to lunch, checked my tweets, discovered my name in several headlines next to several bad words, and, as usual, it was then that I started to consider how my words might affect other people if viewed as headlines.  After five seconds of thinking, I realized, as usual, that other people might be hurt, and that I really need to do this whole “saying things and thinking about other people” cycle in a different order at some point.  I think it would make my podcast shorter but I think there’s a lot of listeners that would consider that an upgrade, too.

…Here’s a list of people of whom I failed to think in that moment, and the sincerely owed apologies to them.

…I am first and foremost sorry to Community fans that got paid nothing to stick by Community and get us to a fifth season only to hear the incoming showrunner say some stuff that felt very un-Community.  Even if my goal had been to hurt someone, it would never have been you.  What I said was disrespectful to your love for this show, love that I sometimes erroneously equate with validation of me as a person.  I am unwittingly and unfortunately infamous for the amount I care about your opinion…

Next I want to apologize to the people that did get paid to work on that season, but not enough: the cast and crew.  I get personal value out of being as honest as possible, but, honestly, how honest was what I said?  It was dishonest to imply that something you worked on was as hard to watch as my family being  assaulted.  I was riffing and tried to turn darkness into levity through shock and hyperbole.  I was very much not thinking about anyone but myself while watching that season, which was the crime.  I hope over time you’ll forgive me….

Thirdly, because they got paid more, but still not enough, the season 4 writers.  I’m sorry I pooped on your work.  You had to do something nobody should have to attempt, and you had the option of doing it the lazy way or the sellout way and you clearly did what you did because you were thinking of the fans.  There was some amazing stuff in there.  Funny jokes.  I liked the “Hogan’s Villains” line.  The idea that in Germany, people watch Hogan’s Heroes, but they call it Hogan’s Villains, is seriously so funny I had to rewind it a couple times to finish laughing.  I will apologize to the Germans later.  Season 4 writers:  Thank you and I’m sorry.  As I went on to say in my podcast, the creatives are not the bad guys…I shouldn’t be letting an inhuman system that doesn’t care about humans enough turn humans against humans.  Especially us.  Don’t tell anyone I said this but all writers are better people than all non-writers.  Nobody read that unless you’re a writer.  I broke a code when I judged the work of writers with whom I wasn’t in the same trenches.  I’ll suffer for it because I’ll be looking for a job soon enough and nobody will want to work with Judgy McPsycho Van Crieswhenhetypes.  So I hope my ten seconds of, as the kids say, “butthurt” comedy was worth it to me, and I’ll see you in Hell, where, don’t tell anybody I said this but is where I believe all writers go because we make God jealous.

…Almost lastly, I have to address this “rape joke” concept.  I have to address it because it looks like if I don’t say anything, it could send the wrong message to people with an understandable passion for the subject.  This is a subject that is, and should be, insanely volatile and provocative, because it combines the words “rape” and “joke.”  It puts them right next to each other, it’s like putting a running chainsaw next to a puppy, it’s just not something you can walk past without getting disturbed and invested.  Does anyone think rape is funny?  I hope not.  Do we become more progressive culturally through the mitigation of inappropriate language?  I don’t know, it’s sure worth continued discussion, if you feel strongly one way or the other you should come up on stage at the next Harmontown.  In the mean time, I am deeply sorry to anyone I hurt by using the word “rape” in a comedic context…

…Oh, on the politically correct side, I just remembered something else.  I think when I did my impression of Season 4’s impression of me, I said “durpy durpy dur, I’m Dan Harmon,” which I think I saw someone point out is language used to dehumanize the developmentally disabled, and that’s not cool, I shouldn’t have done that.

…Okay, wow, that was a lot of apologizing.  That was not a short blog post.  Because that’s how sorry I am.  Also I love talking about myself, but, trust me, this has been more pain than pleasure for the guy that made you feel bad.  Now I’m going to get back to conceptualizing with the writers about season 5 and, I hope, achieve a heightened level of actual empathy in the bargain.

Love,

A Remorseful Friend

(*) Harmontown is currently award-free but I don’t want to have to edit this post later.