Tony Sirico^†

The Sopranos had plenty of actors playing mobsters. Tony Sirico was the only one who had done actual time at Sing Sing for extortion and weapons charges, and reportedly ran with the Colombo crime family before a prison visit from an acting troupe pointed him in a different direction. He picked up his SAG card in 1974 and spent the next two decades playing bit-part gangsters in films like Goodfellas and Cop Land. When David Chase offered him Paulie Gualtieri, Sirico had one condition: his character would never become a rat. That the show honored it for six seasons says something about what Sirico brought to the room.

Paulie Walnuts is one of those characters so specific that the actor never escapes it, and Sirico clearly had no interest in trying. He never made a jump to prestige features or built anything outside the show. When The Sopranos ended, his career wound down with it. David Chase called him 'a main reason for the success of the show,' a substantial claim given the cast he was competing with. Sirico's real-world past wasn't kept from the public. If anything, it made the performance harder to look away from. You were never fully sure where the character ended and the man began.

His first arrest came at age seven. By the time he reached adulthood, the count was 28. He reportedly spent time as an associate of the Colombo crime family under Carmine Persico during the 1960s and 1970s. The FBI spotted him at a Colombo family Christmas party in 1999, the same year The Sopranos premiered. He got into acting because an ex-convict theater troupe performed at his prison during his Sing Sing stint. He originally auditioned for Uncle Junior, lost the role to Dominic Chianese, and walked away with something better.

Cast members from The Sopranos issued tributes on social media within hours of his passing. Michael Imperioli called him 'truly irreplaceable,' while creator David Chase described him as 'a jewel' and 'a main reason for the success of The Sopranos.' His family confirmed the death with a statement citing 'great sadness, but with incredible pride, love and a whole lot of fond memories.'