James Gandolfini's Tony Soprano was a cultural sensation

James Gandolfini, who starred as Tony Soprano on HBO's 'The Sopranos,' made the fictional mob boss a sex symbol and TV obsession.

Alongside Mr. Spock, Archie Bunker and the Fonz, James Gandolfini's Tony Soprano has been absorbed wholesale into the American psyche to rank as one of TV's most indelible icons.

In every sense of the term, Gandolfini's mob boss was larger than life: a man of grand appetites, enormous externalized rage and tremendous heart who cast an equally gigantic shadow across popular culture during six seasons on HBO's"The Sopranos" that qualify as some of the finest television ever produced.

While the multiple Emmy winner, who died unexpectedly Wednesday on a trip to Italy, will be remembered as a loving father, "a man of tremendous depth and sensitivity" (according to his "Sopranos" costar Edie Falco), a journeyman movie actor and "a true New Jersey guy" (as recalled by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who should know), portraying TV's preeminent Mafia kingpin forever cemented Gandolfini's reputation as a different kind of made man.

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