Mobsters Watch, Wonder About New Hbo Series

NEWARK, N.J. - In living rooms. In doughnut shops. At Centanni's Meat Market in Elizabeth, N.J. Even in the cozy grip of the federal witness-protection program. They're talkin'. And some of it ain't good.

"The Sopranos," HBO's brash new series featuring the not-so-fictional story of a middle-management Mafioso in a nouveau riche New Jersey suburb, is generating viewership - and a bit of controversy.

Even though some have objected to the stereotype of Italian Americans as gangsters, the show has gotten nearly unanimous rave reviews since it premiered Jan. 10. After only two of 13 episodes, HBO has ordered another 13 episodes for next season, the fastest renewal in the pay-cable channel's 27-year history.

The first episode was viewed in 3.5 million of HBO's 25 million homes, making it HBO's highest-rated series in five years. Each episode runs Sunday at 9 p.m. and repeats Tuesday at 11 p.m.

It stars New Jersey native James Gandolfini as Tony Soprano, an upwardly mobile, mid-level mobster who works in waste management - when he's not breaking heads - and lives with his wife and two teenage kids in a grandiose house, complete with semicircular driveway in front and swimming pool in back.

He's part Joe Pesci swagger, part Paul Reiser angst. And he's very Jersey, which is what has the locals talking.

The show was filmed in 23 New Jersey towns and presents a caravan of familiar people, places and peculiarities.

But it's the criminal activity depicted by "The Sopranos" that has caught the attention of those with a "professional" interest, such as Anthony, a former New Jersey mobster who is in the federal witness-protection program.

"When I saw the first episode, I was thinking, `Who stole my story?' " said Anthony (not his real name). "I almost fell off the couch, I couldn't believe how real it was. It's so close to home, it's in your back yard.

"The HMOs, hitting up doctors, truck hijackings, loan sharking . . . all these things are true to a T," Anthony said. "And I guarantee, they're all watching. You figure 10,000 members in organized crime in New Jersey and New York, and I bet you 10,000 of them are watching every Sunday night, along with their cousins, and their kids and everyone else in the family.

"And they're all looking at this thing and wondering, where's it coming from? How did they find this stuff out?"

David Chase, the creator, writer and executive producer of "The Sopranos," said a lot of the situations in the show are based on the local color he soaked up as a youth in New Jersey as well as the gangster movies he grew up watching.

Chase said there were no official consultants for the show, but he did talk to a lot of New Jersey cops, as well as a couple of prosecutor's offices.

"They gave us the lay of the land," said Chase, "and I talked to a lot of people who said they knew someone who knew someone in organized crime, and that's also how we got a lot of background stories. That, and the fact that I was always interested in mob things growing up. I was a sponge for that kind of stuff."

Understandably, not everyone in New Jersey is thrilled with the glorification of Mafia life, however domestic or nostalgic.

"It's denigrating to Italian Americans everywhere," the Rev. Joseph Orsini said. Orsini is associate pastor of Our Lady of the Assumption Church in Bayonne and national chairman of the anti-bias committee of UNICO, the largest Italian-American service organization in the United States.

"Most Italian Americans are law-abiding, taxpaying citizens who work and raise children and respect one another. But all we're ever known for is pizza and guns. We're tired of being denigrated and defamed," Orsini said.

Last week he sent out letters to the 125 chapters of UNICO scattered across the country, asking anyone who subscribes to HBO to cancel in protest.

But Gandolfini doesn't think it's a slap at Italian Americans. He just thinks it's a good watch - especially for Jerseyans.

"They love it," said Gandolfini. "I mean, they get to see their own town. Even where we were filming, the people loved it. They were really excited."

Michael Centanni was certainly thrilled. He is the owner of Centanni's Meat Market in Elizabeth, which is featured in a number of scenes throughout the series.

"Someone from HBO Films approached me a couple of years ago," Centanni said. "They were looking for an old-time butcher shop and decided this was the perfect place. My only condition was that they keep our name out front and not change it."

Located in Peterstown, the Italian-American section of Elizabeth, the butcher shop - with its platters of pork and beef, and its sausages hanging in the window - has been in the Centanni family for 68 years.

The show's realism has also struck home for law-enforcement officers, including Bob Carroll, former deputy chief of the state's Organized Crime and Racketeering Bureau. Carroll has put a lot of big-time New Jersey mobsters behind bars, including Anthony "Tumac" Accetturo, reputed head of the Lucchese crime family in New Jersey.

"I find myself tuning in to the show to find out what's going on with the characters from episode to episode," said Carroll. "But they also really delved into things that happen inside organized crime, like what to do about someone's rash act, about faking accidents and filing false insurance claims. We saw that in real life."

In fact, Anthony, the former mobster, thinks art may be imitating life too well.

"The wise guys - the high-echelon guys - if they see this, and I think they got to be, there's going to be an explosion. It's so on the money.

"And the key to the families is they don't want any heat brought on them. They don't want too much attention. So I know they're trying to figure out, who's this guy that's giving them up? Some guy in the can? Or some guy turning on the family?

"I can guarantee it, some of these wise guys are on the phone with their lawyers. There's got to be a panic going on. Somebody's talkin' who shouldn't be."

Ron Donahue, who spent 25 years investigating organized crime, has heard a lot of that talk.

"What the show gets so right is their ordinary lives and also the violence that's involved in their lives," said Donahue, who worked in Essex County and later with the state Attorney General's Office.

"Their work is the violence, and yet they have the same kinds of problems as everyone else."

Alan Zegas, who recently defended two reputed mobsters, agrees. He believes a lot of the show rings true.

"From my own observations, I think a lot of what is depicted is very, very real," said Zegas, whose clients were convicted of racketeering.

"The dialogue, the criminal activity: It's all realistic. And the fact that someone in the mob could be feeling the stresses of mob life is wonderful and funny."

"You got everyone watching this show," said Anthony. "You got the average Joe watching, then all the capos, all the lawyers, all the cops. Everybody!

"I guarantee you, this show, it's an Academy-Award-winner with the Mafia."