The Daily Beast: "James Gandolfini the Great"

James Gandolfini, the hulking star of HBO's acclaimed The Sopranos, has died. My piece on the legacy the actor and producer leaves behind.

At The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "James Gandolfini the Great," my appreciation of the late, great Sopranos star James Gandolfini, who passed away yesterday at age 51 while traveling in Italy.

HBO has confirmed the unexpected death of actor and producer James Gandolfini, who passed away at age 51 while traveling in Italy. At press time, the cause of his death was unclear, with several outlets reporting a heart attack or a "sudden stroke." He was due to appear at the Taormina Film Festival in Sicily, where he was slated to paricipate in a panel discussion with director Gabriele Muccino.

While Gandolfini appeared in countless film and television roles, ranging from comedies (like Armando Iannucci's wickedly skewering Washington satire In the Loop) to hard-hitting dramas like Kathryn Bigelow's Zero Dark Thirty, it was his visceral turn as deeply troubled mobster Tony Soprano, the pater familias of a New Jersey crime family and a domestic one, on HBO's The Sopranos, which won him accolades from critics and viewers alike. During the drama's acclaimed six-season run, Gandolfini would win three Emmy awards for Best Actor for The Sopranos (he was nominated six times), widely regarded as one of the best television shows ever to air—it was recently named the best written show in history by the Writers Guild of America—and one that ushered in a new Golden Age for television.

"We're all in shock and feeling immeasurable sadness at the loss of a beloved member of our family," said HBO in a prepared statement. "He was a special man, a great talent, but more importantly a gentle and loving person who treated everyone no matter their title or position with equal respect. He touched so many of us over the years with his humor, his warmth, and his humility. Our hearts go out to his wife and children during this terrible time. He will be deeply missed by all of us."

With his death, Hollywood has lost one of its finest veteran actors. With The Sopranos, Gandolfini delivered a searing and deeply complex performance that captured the rage, sorrow, and frustation of the modern American male. As played by Gandolfini, Tony Soprano was full of contradictions, a complex man whose struggles with depression and panic attacks humanized him despite the violence he perpetrated on those around him. (It was hard not to love him when even his desperate, harried mother wanted him dead.) Prone to violence, Tony Soprano represented the unfettered darker impulses of the id, while also remaining intriguingly relatable. Even as the character plotted for control of a New Jersey criminal enterprise, he struggled to keep his own family together.

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The Daily Beast: "Dallas Loses Its Schemer: Larry Hagman Dies at 81"

Larry Hagman, best known as the dastardly J.R. Ewing, died Friday at age 81. I explore the indelible mark Hagman left on television and popular culture.

At The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "Dallas Loses Its Schemer," in which I offer an obituary and appreciation for the late Dallas actor Larry Hagman, who passed away on Friday at the age of 81.

Actor Larry Hagman, best known for his role as Dallas’s Machiavellian oil baron J.R. Ewing, died Friday at age 81, after complications from cancer.

Hagman’s career spanned over 60 years, and included not only Dallas and its revival series, which launched earlier this year on TNT, but also the seminal 1960s comedy series I Dream of Jeannie, where he played Major Anthony “Tony” Nelson opposite Barbara Eden’s titular character. Hagman had, according to The Hollywood Reporter, filmed six of the new Dallas’s 15 episodes at the time of his death, with the second season scheduled to start on January 28. How the show will incorporate Hagman’s death remains to be seen.

“All of us at TNT are deeply saddened at the news of Larry Hagman’s passing,” said cable network TNT in a prepared statement. “He was a wonderful human being and an extremely gifted actor. We will be forever thankful that a whole new generation of people got to know and appreciate Larry through his performance as J.R. Ewing. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family at this very difficult time.”

Hagman was born in Fort Worth, Texas in 1931. His mother, Mary Martin, would go on to become a renowned Broadway actress and his father was an accountant and a district attorney; the two divorced when Hagman was five years old. Hagman served in the United States Air Force during the Korean War and entertained troops in the U.K. and Europe during the conflict, and opted to follow in his mother’s footsteps with a career in acting once he returned to the U.S.

Roles on the stage segued into television work, with his first on-screen appearance coming in 1956 in syndicated cop drama Decoy; he later joined the cast of CBS mystery soap opera The Edge of Night, where he stayed on board for two seasons. But it was his role nine years later on I Dream of Jeannie that established his meteoric career trajectory, with CBS primetime soap Dallas arriving in 1977. And with that role—as manipulative oil scion J.R. Ewing—Hagman further entered the cultural lexicon. He also appeared in such films as Primary Colors, Nixon, and JFK.

Hagman leaves a lasting legacy, not just among Dallas’s devoted viewers in the 1980s, but among a younger generation that discovered J.R. and the Ewings thanks to TNT’s revival series, which picked up with the Ewing clan 20 years after the end of the series. A schemer and a dreamer, Hagman’s J.R. was known for his devilish eyebrows and for his manipulative streak, as well as for amassing both wealth and enemies in equal measure.

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The Daily Beast: "Roseanne Barr Hails the Comedic Genius of Phyllis Diller"

Phyllis Diller, who died Monday at 95, paved the way for generations of female comedians. Roseanne Barr on the legendary and ‘paradoxically regal’ comedian, her enduring legacy, and what the gin-drinking Diller thought about the afterlife.

Over at The Daily Beast, you can read a feature that I had a hand in making happen: "Roseanne Barr Hails the Comedic Genius of Phyllis Diller," in which Barr reflects on the death of her friend, gin-drinking comedy legend Phyllis Diller.

All hail and observe a moment of silence—a genius has vacated this space and left us here to remember her life and her work. I remember hearing her records as a child. My dad collected comedy records, and what I loved the most about her was her laugh. She was the only comic I saw who laughed at her own jokes, and I found that funnier than hell. I stole that from her, but she viewed it as more a tribute than a lift. The last several years I called my ex-husbands “Fang” on stage, too.

It was timeless, that wacky, tacky character she created; the cigarette holder was genius, paradoxically regal. She was a victorious loser hero, the female iteration of Chaplin’s Little Tramp, replete with costume jewelry that would embarrass Rick Ross.

You could tell the character had a messy house, and she couldn't care less because she also had a dreadful husband and a world of shit. So? Hey, must be time for a gin martini and some laughs!

It wasn’t until you saw her paintings or heard her play a concerto on the piano that you understood that this woman lived her life as a true artist and a revolutionary. She knew a woman’s place was not in the home, at a time when everyone on earth regurgitated that canard every minute of every day.

She buried two children who died of old age. She made it to 95, and she didn’t like it at all. She told me she was pissed that she lived through a fall off the bed that broke her neck. I asked her if she believed in life after death, and she threw back her head and laughed that laugh, and said, “How in the hell would that work? Liz Taylor had about eight husbands or something. What would it be like when they all got together, a big gangbang or something? Hey, wait a minute—maybe that would be heaven!”

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