Actress Nancy Marchand – who played Livia, the bitter and scheming mother of gangster Tony Soprano on HBO’s “The Sopranos” – died Sunday at her home in Stratford, Conn.
Marchand, who would have been 72 yesterday, was best known recently for her role on the mob hit, but first gained widespread TV fame playing Mrs. Pynchon, the publisher on the CBS newspaper drama “Lou Grant.”
She had been suffering from emphysema and lung cancer for years.
“If I die, it’s not my problem,” she said in a recent interview. “It’s [“Sopranos” producer] David [Chase] left holding the bag.”
It is not known if “Sopranos” producers will recast Marchand’s character or write her death into the series.
“Even if we knew we wouldn’t say anything,” a source close to the show said yesterday.
Born June 19, 1928, in Buffalo, Marchand graduated from the Carnegie Institute of Technology with a bachelor of fine arts.
Her big break came in 1953, when she starred opposite Rod Steiger in “Marty,” the Paddy Chayevsky TV drama about a lonely butcher living in The Bronx.
Marchand won four Emmys during the 1970s for her portrayal of Margaret Pynchon, the tough-as-nails publisher of the mythical Los Angeles Tribune.
Last year, Marchand won a Golden Globe and was nominated for an Emmy for her role as Livia, the plotting but mentally impaired matriarch of a Mafia family – the focal point for much of her mob-boss son’s psychological problems.
The character, according to reports, was loosely based on Chase’s own mother, who died more than six years ago.
Livia – calculating and selfish but convinced that she was simply a helpless, abused old lady – ultimately OK’d putting a hit out on her son Tony, at the end of the show’s first season.
She spent the bulk of last season bitterly living in a nursing home.
“I’ve known I’ve had cancer for five years,” Marchand recently said in an interview. “It was explained to [HBO] by my agent and they went on anyway.”
Marchand also said she suffered from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
Her husband of 47 years, Paul Sparer, died last November, also of cancer. She is survived by three children – Kathryn, Rachel and David – and seven grandchildren.