James Gandolfini died too soon, but the story he left behind is almost unbelievable. Before he was TV’s most feared mob boss, he was a small-town heartthrob with a killer smile and a reputation as the “biggest flirt” in school. Friends remember a shy, magnetic kid, not a ruthless gangster. The transformation from quiet Jersey boy to iconic antihero is so startling, so deeply human, it forces you to see Tony Soprano—and Gandolfini himself—in a completely different li… Continues…