Gentle giant Gandolfini will be sorely missed

One of the biggest, gentlest men I ever met was James Gandolfini.

There was shock in LA when news filtered through of The Sopranos star’s death last week. He had a fatal heart attack while on holiday in Italy at just 51.

James was friendly and actually quite shy. He really didn’t like doing red carpet events whenever I was covering one, he’d tend to sail past all the reporters.

He wasn’t anti-press or anything I think he was just a quiet type, which is quite rare for a Hollywood star. Once you got to know him he was lovely, though.

I interviewed James a couple of times and was actually quite scared of him at first! He inhabited the role of feared mob boss Tony Soprano so well you couldn’t help but be a wee bit intimidated.

But he was the very definition of a gentle giant. Once you got to know the softly-spoken James, he was friendly and we ended up having a good laugh.

He obviously carried a lot of weight, but often seemed to slim down for certain roles, only to bulk back up again.

I asked him about that and James said he felt he needed that weight to really “be” Tony Soprano.

The character was heavy, and walked and even sat down in a certain way, so James felt he couldn’t do that if he was slim.

He was humble, too, and maybe underestimated his own talents when he went for the audition for The Sopranos, he thought there was no chance he was getting it and a typical hunky leading man would land the role.

I don’t think James ever really came to terms with his fame, though. He won the role in The Sopranos in his late 30s and I don’t think he was prepared for how iconic it would become.

Humble, shy, and reluctant to be famous not many stars are like that here in Hollywood.

I was away from La-La Land down in Mexico last week. We visited Chichen Itza on a tour of Mayan ruins.

It features magnificent pyramids that were only recently discovered, dating back 5,000 years.

I had to laugh when the wee Mexican guy asked: “Senor . . . is this not amazing? Have you ever seen anything so old?”

I wanted to show him a picture of Jackie Stallone.

Did you see her? She was in the papers last week complaining she looked “like a chipmunk with a mouth full of walnuts”.

She’s had a lot of work done I think 91-year-old Jackie must be the only person to have different birthdays for the various parts of her body.

Years of plastic surgery have taken their toll on Sly’s mum.

I’m not saying she looks old, but I wouldn’t have been surprised to see a carving of her somewhere on those Mayan pyramids!