I had Nancy Marchand's home telephone number in New York City. I thought of calling her earlier this month before HBO began carrying reruns of its pay-cable hit, "The Sopranos."
An HBO press representative essentially told me that I could call her if I felt it was necessary. But she added, if she were me, she would let the ailing actress alone for awhile.
So I never called. Marchand died Sunday night, a day before her 72nd birthday.
The mere fact that I had her number shows how unaffected the Buffalo native was by her fame.
Actresses and actors generally guard their privacy like Dominik Hasek guards the net. Certainly, the last person that they'd want to give their phone number to is a journalist. When a reporter sets up interviews by telephone, a publicist usually calls, puts their client on and often listens in to make sure nothing outrageous is said.
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Not Marchand. As her versatile credits in theater, film and television attest, she was an actress more than a celebrity and she had reached an age where she felt she could say anything.
A perfect example of that came earlier this year when she told Entertainment Weekly: "If I die, it's not my problem. It's David (series writer-creator David Chase) left holding the bag."
Actually, her character, Livia Soprano, was supposed to die in the first season. But Chase changed the plan because the writers loved the actress and her chemistry with series lead James Gandolfini (Tony Soprano).
It was that instant chemistry in "The Sopranos" premiere two winters ago that prompted me to call HBO to set up an interview with Marchand, who was having a devilishly good time playing Livia, a wicked, manipulative mother who helped send Tony to a shrink and put him on Prozac.
There was no intermediary. I got Marchand's number and called her. We talked again before this season over the phone. She made me feel I was welcome to call any time.
Those two brief conversations were enough to make me realize that she was an actress who was understandably proud of her work, appreciated her Buffalo roots and never took herself too seriously.
Before playing Livia, Marchand probably was best known for her role as Mrs. Pynchon, the sophisticated publisher on the old "Lou Grant" newspaper series who wouldn't have looked out of place in the A.R. Gurney plays in which Marchand often appeared.
The contrast between the regal Mrs. Pynchon and Livia the mobster's wife and mother certainly illustrates Marchand's acting range.
In my first conversation with her in February of 1999, Marchand said she often auditioned for roles that were opposite her image. And that's why she auditioned to play the scheming Livia.
"The fact it was so off the wall from what I usually do," she said before adding: "I don't know if you should say this, but David (Chase) kept saying to me over and over, 'you know, this is my mother.' "
She was almost apologetic about revealing that fact, which Chase has admitted in several interviews in the last two years.
Since she was the mother of three grown children, I joked with Marchand that her son must be relieved she doesn't behave like Livia and make him feel guilty.
"Well, maybe I am," she said, exhibiting her playful side.
Asked what she thought Mrs. Pynchon would say to Mrs. Soprano, Marchand said dryly: "I don't think she'd give her the time of day."
By the end of the first season of "The Sopranos," Livia was planting seeds to put a hit out on Tony. He responded by trying to suffocate her while she was being wheeled into a hospital. Through her oxygen mask in the season finale, she appeared to be smiling at Tony.
Which brings me to my second conversation with Marchand, which took place in January. She was home alone, her husband of 47 years, Paul Sparer, having died a few months earlier.
I wanted to know what the season-ending smile was supposed to mean. Marchand said she didn't know, either.
"They just wanted the enigma of it all," said Marchand.
Because of her character's strained relationship with Tony and her own health problems, Marchand and Livia weren't around as much this season as many viewers wanted. That actually may make it easier for Chase to deal with Livia's death next March when the show returns. Certainly, Tony might need extra therapy -- and Prozac -- to deal with his mother's death a year after he spent so little time with her.
The series became so popular and heavily-hyped before season No. 2 that Marchand's battle with cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease was made public by reporters who believed they discovered something new.
"I had cancer before I started the show," she told me in January. "I was told the last time that I was at the doctor that I have a clean bill of health. I don't believe it because it doesn't happen that way. He also said I want you to come back in a month or two, and I'll take an X-ray."
Unfortunately, she was right.
And now she's likely in heaven with her husband. And I doubt there's any enigma to her smile.
