EEV: All life is valuable; However, Chris Christie is misunderstanding why we the lower the flags of this country at half-mast. He should apologize to the many who die in service to this country and his kind.

• Gandolfini’s  cause of death officially ruled a heart attack
• The Sopranos  star’s funeral will be held Monday in New York City
• Chris  Christie: Gandolfini ‘Jersey through and through’

By  Reuters Reporter and Daily Mail Reporter

PUBLISHED: 22:04 EST, 21  June 2013 |  UPDATED: 22:06 EST, 21 June 2013

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has  ordered that flags in the Garden State be lowered to half-mast on Monday to  honor ‘Jersey guy’ James Gandolfini, the star of the acclaimed HBO drama the  Sopranos, and who was found dead in a Rome hotel Wednesday of a heart  attack.

‘All the people in the state really felt a  connection to him, not just his character, but to him,’ Christie said Thursday  at a ribbon-cutting ceremony in Madison, New Jersey. ‘He died much, much too  young.’

In addition to the comments at the ceremony,  Christie’s office issued a statement of condolence for the New Jersey native,  whom he described as ‘Jersey, through and through.’

Heart attack: the official cause of James Gandolfini’s  untimely death has been ruled a heart attack

‘James Gandolfini enjoyed an extraordinarily  successful acting career  across television, film and Broadway, including his  popularly acclaimed  role as Tony Soprano in “The Sopranos” and advocated for  United States  service members and veterans in his two documentaries, “Alive Day  Memories: Home From Iraq” and “Wartorn: 1861-2010,'” the statement  says.

It also was revealed today that it was, in  fact, a heart attack that killed the Sopranos star.

Michael Kobold told journalists an autopsy on  Friday morning showed Gandolfini had died of natural causes, confirming an  earlier report from medical officials.

The autopsy had shown ‘nothing out of the  ordinary … there was no foul play, there was no substance abuse,’ Kobold  said.

Kobold, who was designated by the family to  talk to the media, said Gandolfini, had had a good time with his 13-year-old son  Michael and there was no hint anything was wrong.
‘He had a wonderful  day. He visited the Vatican and had dinner at the hotel with his son, awaiting  the arrival of his (Gandolfini’s) sister,’ Kobold said.

‘He was on vacation with his son, he has an  eight-month-old daughter. Everything was going really great. I just spoke to him  on Father’s Day. He was fine, he was happy. He was a good guy,’ Kobold  said.

The star was found dead in his Rome hotel  late on Wednesday.

His sister, Leta Gandfolfini, visited his  body at the hospital morgue on Friday morning after the autopsy.

Asked if Gandolfini had previous heart  problems, Kobold said: ‘No. He was happy. He was healthy. He was doing really  fine.’

Gandolfini, whose performance as New Jersey  mob boss Tony Soprano made him a household name and helped usher in a new era of  American television drama, had been scheduled to attend the closing of the  Taormina Film Festival in Sicily on Saturday.

 

‘Too young’: Christie says that, at 51, Gandolfini was  too young to die

Gandolfini’s manager, Mark Armstrong, said in  an email the actor’s son, Michael, found him collapsed in the bathroom of his  Rome hotel room but Kobold refused to comment on that.

Claudio Modini, the emergency room chief,  told Reuters on Thursday doctors had tried to resuscitate Gandolfini for 40  minutes when he arrived at the hospital.

Kobold said Gandolfini’s body would be  embalmed, which is not a common practice in Italy, ahead of its return to the  United States, probably next week. The family hoped to have the funeral in New  York City late next week.

It normally took up to 10 days to return a  body but the family was working with Italian authorities to speed up the  procedure, he added.

‘We are all devastated by this loss. James  was a devoted husband, a loving father of two children and a brother and cousin  you could always count on,’ he said.

 

Family man: Gandolfini leaves behind his wife, Deborah  Lin (left), son Michael, and daughter, Liliana

Since ‘The Sopranos’ ended its six-season run  in June 2007, Gandolfini appeared in a number of big-screen roles, including the  crime drama ‘Killing Them Softly’ and ‘Zero Dark Thirty,’ a film about the hunt  for Osama bin Laden.

Gandolfini had been working on an upcoming  HBO series, ‘Criminal Justice,’ and had two films due out next  year.

Apart from Michael, his son with his first  wife, who he divorced in 2002, Gandolfini is survived by wife, Deborah Lin and  baby daughter Liliana, born last year.

In the HBO series, the burly, physically  imposing Gandolfini created a gangster different from any previously seen in  American television or film.

Tony Soprano was capable of killing enemies  with his own hands but was prone to panic attacks. He regularly saw a therapist  to work out his anxiety problems.

 

The ‘boss’: Gandolfini’s death ends the hopes of many  Sopranos fans that a movie based on the show might be in the works

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