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‘Sopranos’ star James Gandolfini dead of heart attack at 51

James Gandolfini, the Hollywood heavyweight who won multiple Emmy Awards for his role as mob boss Tony Soprano in the smash HBO series “The Sopranos,” died of a heart attack yesterday.

He was 51.

Gandolfini, who was stricken in Rome, was due to appear at the Taormina Film Festival in Sicily this weekend.

“I have lost a brother and a best friend. The world has lost one of the greatest actors of all time,” tweeted Gandolfini’s friend Steven Van Zandt, who played Tony Soprano’s consigliere, Silvio Dante, in the series.

Gandolfini was vacationing with his sister and his 13-year-old son when he suffered the heart attack.

They had just returned to the Boscolo Luxury Hotel Exedra after sightseeing and eating dinner when Gandolfini went into the bathroom and didn’t come out, sources said.

Gandolfini’s sister went in, found him unconscious on the bathroom floor and called an ambulance, sources said.

The famed actor arrived at Policlinic Umberto I hospital at 10:40 p.m. local time, or 4:40 p.m. EDT, and was pronounced dead 20 minutes later, said Dr. Claudio Modini, head of the hospital’s ER.

An autopsy was expected to be performed within 24 hours, in accordance with Italian law, Dr. Modini said.

The Westwood, NJ-born actor played Soprano in the critically acclaimed series, which ran from 1999 to 2007 and ended with the screen suddenly turning black in the final scene, with Tony’s fate a mystery.

“When I first saw the ending, I said, ‘What the f–k?’ ” Gandolfini told Vanity Fair magazine.

“I mean, after all I went through, all this death, and then it’s over like that?”

In the interview, he defended the violence on the show, saying the characters paid for the pain they dealt.

“We’d get accused, back then, of glamorizing mobsters, but we were all half-miserable, you know. I don’t think the violence looks appealing at all,” he said.

“Everyone paid for the violence in a lot of ways . . . It’s a very violent world and, you know, there’s consequences. I think we showed it, and I think we showed the toll it takes on these people.”

Gandolfini reinvented and invigorated the tough-guy mafioso, and played complex criminals whose violent ways were tempered by their emotional frailties.

Tony Soprano saw a female shrink and fought with his wife even as he whacked his enemies.

And the actor dealt with personal demons in real life, too.

Gandolfini battled alcohol and cocaine addiction, his rep told The Post in 2002.

David Chase, the show’s creator, said last night, “He was a genius. Anyone who saw him, even in the smallest of his performances, knows that. He is one of the greatest actors of this or any time.

“A great deal of that genius resided in those sad eyes. I remember telling him many times, ‘You don’t get it. You’re like Mozart.’ There would be silence at the other end of the phone. For [his wife] Deborah and [teenage son] Michael and [infant daughter] Lilliana, this is crushing. And it’s bad for the rest of the world.

“He wasn’t easy sometimes. But he was my partner. He was my brother in ways I can’t explain and never will be able to explain.”

Gandolfini’ s castmates remembered him as unpretentious and generous.

“He is my best friend in life,” said Tony Sirico, who played “Paulie Walnuts” Gualtieri, Tony’s friend and fellow wiseguy. “He helped me more than anyone else with my career. He’s a great person and a family guy.”

And Vincent Curatola, who played John “Johnny Sack” Sacramoni, said, “I used to call him the ‘Fearless Leader.’

“I was just coming off the ferry from Manhattan when I heard [of the tragedy] and I said, ‘I hope this is a rumor.’

“We were together at Mohegan Sun in March and had a great time. I don’t know what happened. [New Jersey Gov.] Chris Christie just called me and said, ‘When they bring him home, we’ll do whatever his family needs,’ because he’s a Jersey boy.”

Gandolfini was born on Sept. 18, 1961, in Westwood and later grew up in Park Ridge. His mom, Santa, was a lunch lady and his dad, James Sr., held blue-collar jobs.

He attended Rutgers University, and had his first Broadway role in 1992’s “A Streetcar Named Desire.”

His breakout big-screen role was as Virgil, a coldblooded hit man in the Quentin Tarentino-penned “True Romance.”

“Now, the first time you kill somebody, that’s the hardest,” his character tells his target during a chilling monologue. “Now . . . s–t . . . now, I do it just to watch their f–kin’ expression change.”

He also had roles in the movies “Crimson Tide,” “Get Shorty” and “The Mexican,” in which he played a gay hit man.

He recently played then-CIA Director Leon Panetta in “Zero Dark Thirty,” based on the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

“I sent a note to Leon saying, ‘I’m very sorry about everything. The wig, everything. You’re kind of like my father. You’ll find something to be angry about,’ ” he said earlier this year.

Gandolfini had a lot to look forward to.

He recently tied the knot for a second time, with Deborah Lin, with whom he had a baby girl last October.

“Fifty-one and leaves a kid — he was newly married. His son is fatherless now . . . It’s way too young,” said Joe Gannascoli, who played fellow mobster Vito Spatafore on the show.

And Gandolfini was set to star in a seven-episode series titled “Criminal Justice” on HBO, playing low-rent lawyer Jack Stone.

He signed a deal with CBS earlier this month to adapt a French sitcom, “Taxi-22” — about a politically incorrect New York cabby — for the network.

Gandolfini was expected to executive-produce the show through his company, Attaboy Productions.

Ex-neighbors were shocked by his death, and flowers were laid outside his former residence in Tribeca.

“He’s the nicest guy in the building. If you ever needed anything, he’d always help you out,” said a doorman at the Greenwich Street building.

“I can’t believe this. He just had a baby girl a little while ago. He seemed fine.”

A manager at the Robert De Niro-owned Locanda Verde, a favorite Gandolfini haunt, said he was “just a true gentleman, humble and noble man. He was just a good guy — a young guy. I have chills right now talking about it.”

In a statement, HBO called him “a gentle and loving person who treated everyone, no matter their title or position, with equal respect.”

Additional reporting by Erin Calabrese