Nancy Marchand (June 19, 1928 - June 18, 2000)

Before she became the cold and calculating Livia Soprano on HBO's "The Sopranos" Nancy Marchand always played, in her own words, "the tasteful lady." She started out on the stage but quickly made the jump to television. Her first television break was in 1953 on "The Philco Television Playhouse." She would go onto to guest star on many programs including "Studio One", "Playhouse 90", "The Defenders", "Cheers", "Spenser: For Hire", "Law & Order", "Night Court", "Coach", and "Homicide: Life on the Street." Nancy was no stranger to daytime television either...she had recurring roles on "The Edge of Night", "Another World", and "Love of Life." In 1977, she was cast as newspaper publisher Margaret Pynchon on the drama "Lou Grant" starring Edward Asner. She stayed with the program until it went off the air in 1982. Nancy was also present in many made for television movies and a handful of feature films. In 1988 she played the straight laced, tough as nails Mayor of Los Angeles in "The Naked Gun" and in 1995 she appeared with Harrison Ford in the remake of the Audrey Hepburn film "Sabrina." OK...all that being said...on to Livia Soprano. Livia Soprano was rotten to the core...! There was not a single redeeming quality about her. But she was played so brilliantly that she actually made me laugh. The stuff she would say and the way she would say it was horrible...but also terrific. The writing was so damn perfect and the actress picked it up from the page perfectly. When it comes to a performance like this there are two sources of talent to consider...the person who has the ability to put in on paper and the person who has the ability to life it off. Nancy Marchand's Livia Soprano will never win television's greatest Mom, but she might be in the running for television's most dangerous sociopath. Anyone that manipulates her brother-in-law into trying to have her son "whacked" just because he put her in a retirement community deserves that trophy. The loss of Livia Soprano really impacted the show. Her quarrels with her son were some of the show's most intense and most memorable. Perhaps if she had lived on throughout the show season five and season six parts 1 & 2 wouldn't have been so dreadful.

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