James Gandolfini wasn’t always the burly, brooding figure the world remembers as Tony Soprano. Long before his rise to fame, he was a popular, confident teenager in New Jersey—voted both “best looking” and “biggest flirt” in his 1979 high school yearbook. Born in Westwood in 1961 to a working-class Italian American family, Gandolfini grew up with a warmth and quiet charisma friends still remember fondly.
