0 all right. that's enough. >> james gandolfini as we said was characteristically modest about snagging that part. he said i thought it was a wonderful script. i thought i would do this. i thought they would hire somebody a little more appealing to the eye. james gandolfini dead tonight at the age of 51. he'll be deeply, deeply missed. that will do it for this edition of 360. of 360. "piers morgan live" starts now. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com this is ""piers morgan live" ". breaking news to the death of an american super star james gandolfini died at the age of 51 reportedly of a heart attack. he did what was impossible of most actors, make the world love a mob boss. >> to my health, to being in this beautiful spot with people that i love. i couldn't ask for more. >> salute. >> it was a role that made him a super star. tony sapronos, here is another moment from that classic series. >> you know why we're here, so any doubts of reservations, now is the time to say so. no one will think any less of you because once you enter this family, there's no getting out. it comes before everything else. >> one of the greatest of all tv charters, perhaps the greatest that part when james gandolfini, three emmy awards. more on his extraordinary life and career. i want to begin with bill carter that covers television for the new york times and interviewed james gandolfini and remembers him as a huge talent. bill carter, it's a real shock. he was only 51, the peak of his acting powers. what is your reaction to the death of james gandolfini? >> i have to say i'm really stunned. i -- you know, did speak to him on many occasions and he was a warm guy, you mknow, he was nota great interview because he was sort of reserved, not at all like his charter. but, you know, full of life. i mean, the guy was just a force, a tremendous physical force and really a sapurb talent. it changed television. television changed dramatically because of this and really, i think the center point of dramatic acting shifted from movies to television because of him. i mean, he just changed the way people regard television and actors came to television because they could perform at this level after watching him. >> what was interesting about him? i met him a couple times, he was pretty shy, actually, when you met him in the flesh, very modest, very reserved in many ways as you hinted there in terms of interviews but very, very different to the charter he played in the sapronos and it became this theater force. the charter tony saprono in television? >> i think at the top because i think television forever was consumed with creating a lead charter who would be in a likable and i think he made him -- he made this incredibly scary guy, who in many ways, extremely likable at the same time. it was a really great performance and fully fleshed out. i mean, you know, he had tremendous vulnerability and going to a psychiatrist and torments in his family and mother and children. it was a full fleshed performance and i don't think we saw anything like that before and won't see anything like it again. we see great performances but this was breakthrough, this was a changing performance and nothing was the same in television after this show. >> we have a statement just in, actually, from david chase, the creator of sopranos. he said he was a genius. he's one of the greatest act tomorrows of this or any time. a great deal of that genius resided in those sad eyes. i remember telling him you don't get it, you're like moats art. he wasn't easy sometimes but he was my partner, brothers in ways i can't explain and never will be able to explain. david chase there. very moving words there, bill. >> yes. >> i've been struck by the extraordinary outpouring of tributes and grief on twitter and facebook, really a lot of people seem to have been really affected by this. >> this show when it started nobody knew anything about it. it was supposedly about a mobster but sounded like an opera show because it was called the sopranos. it was rejected by fox and pitched to them and suddenly it was the most-talked about show and grew to an enormous level. hbo is only seen in a third of the televisions in america. it was a cultural phenomenon and just drove the talk of, you know, television and the entertainment industry for all the years it was on. >> he did a remarkable interview in the actor's studio, if you haven't seen it, get on youtube and watch it. he really was the craft of acting. incredibly seriously and agonized about it, didn't he? whenever i read it, it was the constant pursuit of per following the accideperfection. he was never happy? >> he and chase -- i did a double interview with them right before the show ended and i spent a whole day with them on the set, and he and chase were like partners, but they did not seem like they were like close friends. it was like he had created this charter and it was almost like he was challenging chase a little bit to bring out more of this charter. i mean, he was a really difficult guy in some waste. i think chase eluded to that. he had demons, there is no question about that. but i mean, he just had an enormous amount of talent not because he started out because he wanted to be an actor. he was a truck driver until he was like 25 years old and found this calling. boy, he was devoted to it. >> what was particularly sad, bill, he was in his second marriage and had a young baby daughter born last year and in terms of his acting, he had moved on from the sopranos and taking on big roles and seems to have come at this crushingly awful time, professionally and personally when he could, i suspect, never have been happier. >> no, i think that's true and i think he -- i think he felt very close to this new family of his. i think he really had big ideas for things to do. you know, he had been a star on broadway after the sopranos. he picked very interesting roles. he never took the more conventional things. he took some small roles. you're surprised you see james gandolfini in a part. he accepted a new role that was extraordinary and i was really looking forward to that. it's just a shame to be taken away from because i think he had years, years of great performances in it. >> you could argue decades. he was 51 years old and in zero dark 30 of course and huge successful movie and every movie in television show, even outside of the sapronos, he had this dominant physical presence, didn't he? and personality that came through. >> piers, i've rarely been with a guy that was more physically imposing. gi guys might have been bigger but he was like a building. he was so big and part his arm around me. i have a picture of him and looks like i'm standing next to a mountain. he was such a physical presence and in the pilot of the sopranos. he had to like at one point confront christopher, his -- his nephew and in the scene he all of a sudden picked him up physically and threw him unexpectedly to chase and he was like oh my gosh because it was perfect to say, wow, this is a scary guy. he could be a really scary, scary guy physically. he would really intimidate people, which was perfect for that part. >> thank you for joining me. >> nice to be with you piers. for viewers just tuning in, very sad breaking news of the death of james gandolfini, the star of course of the sopranos. he died at the age of 51 he was in italy we believe on a private holiday. i want to bring in michelle turner and sanjay gupta and larry king on the phone. larry, you were at a function in las vegas several week ace go with james gandolfini. what kind of shape was he in there? >> he was in a great mood, piers. we had a great time at dinner honoring mohammed ali. it was a black tie dinner. he felt wonderful. a great career, nice play on broadway. the interesting thing about him piers, he was a great charter actor and charter actors rare he become stars and the sopranos made him a star. he did a lot of wonderful films, plays theater. the guy sitting next to me bid 250,000 -- i think $275,000 for a cruise to the mediterranean and won the bid and said to james, you want to go with me? and gandolfini said, yeah i'll go. he says, yeah, i'll go. he was really good. i think he was smoking a cigar and he was, of course, really over weight. we don't know what he died of yet. i can speculation. but when you see a guy that size at age 51, no previous things about anything you wouldn't normally think the heart. but the last time i saw him, he was in a great mood. >> tell me, larry, you interviewed him and you knew him. i always got the feeling with james gandolfini that the super star status that came with his role "the sopranos" took him by surprise and he always slightly struggled with the amazing fame it brought him. would you go along with that? >> i would agree completely with that. as i said, he was a classic charter. many roles, many vie verdiverse and suddenly, you're given this -- you know, you're come parred to o'connor getting all in the family, very similar, another charter actor suddenly becomes this huge star in a -- in a television show that goes beyond expectations and suddenly you're freshed on the scene. you'll never be the same once you have that. suddenly even recognizes you and you're still the regular guy you always was. and he -- he was a classic regular guy, piers. if he was on your show tonight, you would finish at 10:00 and you would go have a pizza with him. >> that's exactly what i heard about him, yeah. yeah, very socialble guy -- >> down to earth, regular guy -- >> larry -- >> you -- >> larry, if you wouldn't mind holding for a second. i got bob with me now. the president of nbc universal when the sopranos came on television, bob, a devastating day for everyone in the world of acting and television. you knew james januagandolfini . you were there at the start of the sopranos. what did you think? sdw . >> i was shocked. he was young. i was the law secretary to the chief of the judge with the trials. many of those trails with the rico act were the basis of the stories behind the sopranos and i thought tony and his role, it was so spectacular. it was so real. it was a lot of language. there was a lot of violence. there was a lot of things that we couldn't do on broadcast television, and he was a great actor that made that come into our living rooms and seemingly with all of that that i just said, it was just so well-written, so well-produced and he was such a wonderful actor. >> the initial concerns were that it may -- it may glamorize the mob, the mafia but as james gandolfini said many times over the years, i remember seeing this in an interview, it had a reverse effect. they were depressed and unhappy with their lives. the very thing it wasn't was glom rous. >> there is no glamor. he was a bartender at one time in his own world, so some of the -- some of the aspects of the show were not that foreign from his, you know, his earlier background. yes, we were -- we were -- i was concerned that we weren't able to do shows like that and i was concerned that if we weren't able to -- to produce and write and have shows like that on nbc at the time, that we would be losing contact with a lot of americans who were going to be interested in the show because i thought the show was so good. that was -- that was a very selfish feel sglg bill carter said earlier he really felt that the sopranos transformed television and created a new way of doing television which drew in great move vie actors and producers to do this stuff on the small screen. >> i would agree with that. it also -- when you watch the show and you saw episode after episode, you know, the language and violence became secondary. the acting was very good. the plots were very -- were, you know, so realistic. you felt like you were in it, and you did have a lot of sympathy. the people there were not doing that well. you know, they were kind of like low rent mobsters. >> bob wright, thank you very much indeed for joining me. >> thank you, piers. thank you very much. i want to go back to larry king. larry, i think as the next few days unravel, there will be a general consensus. i'm already sensing this on twitter and other social media that james gandolfini and his role as tony soprano may not be one of the greatest television actors but the greatest. what do you think? >> it will be right up there. it is hard to pick the greatest but certainly, you can't not include him in the greatest. if he put a stamp on that role, it will live forever. it was a very special role. he went right in with it, and there is no way, you know, what happened to him, that he was able to transform himself from this charter actor as i said into this major star and yet, he remained -- i think the public sensed his humanity. the public sensed that he was like one of the guys, like he was -- he was a regular guy. he was playing this role. he was tony soprano but you knew you would like james gandolfini if you were with him. i got to go make a speech, piers, so i have to run. >> larry, i know you have. thank you for joining me. >> my pleasure. >> larry king there. let's take a quick break. sanjay gupta and turner will be with me. the death of james gandolfini from the sopranos but first, a scene from the mafia boss and his psychiatrist. >> i don't even know why i come here. nothing else to do. >> do you think it would help if you went someplace so you can rest up awhile? >> like vegas? >> not vegas. someplace where you can be looked after. >> like a hospital with the padded rooms and straight jackets 1234. >> no, no straight jackets. a residential treatment center. >> you got any idea what my life would be worth if certain people found out i checked into a laughing academy? one... more... step! 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incredible outpouring of tributes to him, one saying one of the greatest charters of all time tony soprano. >> you can really look at the television business before sopranos and after sopranos. sopranos changed tv. tony soprano was a charter nobody had seen before and it was a precurser for madmen, homeland, breaking bad, shows not afraid to build a show around a flawed and dark charter. that's what tony soprano was and that had never been seen before. >> let me bring in sanjay gupta. obviously, he died tragic at 51 and a very big-framed man. we don't know much about the kind of lifestyle that he had. what is your sort of suggestion -- suspicion if you would like what may have caused this? we are merely speculating. >> certainly, you would have to think about heart disease and specifically when you talk about heart disease leading to potentially a heart attack, what often is actually causing death is when the heart as a result of poor blood flow to the heart starts to beat irregularly and that can cause this. i think obviously, piers, as you suggested have to put that at the top of the list. but he is young, 51 years old. the average age of a first attack typically is mid 60s. but there are risk factors. certainly somebody over weight or obese or a smoker, high cholesterol or drug use in the past, those are all risk factors. i'll point out, as well, in italy where he is as a u.s. citizen over there, there is a chance the medical investigators will try to figure out in more detail what happened here. when something happens that's unusual, unexpected -- >> what we do know, sanjan. >> in 2002 he admitted he battled alcohol and cocaine abuse and checked into rehab several times, so that, i guess, would give indications he had demons to deal with which may have precipitated heart problems. he said i should exercise but i'm too hold for that. i lost 30 pounds to play my part in the mexican. people don't take right to skin me mafia men. i don't feel right when i'm thin. he was slightly b lly bigger th was when he died. he had been to rehab for cocaine and alcohol abuse. none of that will help, i guess, in terms of avoiding heart trouble. >> yeah, i mean, those are all certainly big risk factors and, you know, even short of those risk factors heart disease is the biggest killer of men and women in the united states. those things will put him at increased risk, but still, piers, one of the questions that does arise when something like this happens to someone in a young age, you want to make sure there is nothing else, as well. people are speculating, as you said, piers this is the cause but there may be a more definitive answer here and that will be dependent on what the medical examiners in italy, how they chose to pursue this and his family, obviously. >> neshel turner, i said earlier, facebook and twitter have blown up with tributes. i saw rob low called him the greatest tv cha