Robert LuPone, ‘The Sopranos’ star and theater veteran, dies age 76

He died on Saturday following a three-year battle with pancreatic cancer, said the Manhattan Class Company (MCC) Theater, the influential off-Broadway theater company which LuPone co-founded and served as a co-artistic director.

But his most notable television role came in 1999 when he was cast as Dr. Bruce Cusamano, the neighbor and family doctor of mobster Tony Soprano (played James Gandolfini) on the HBO hit “The Sopranos.”

“I had always been playing a bad Italian character if you will and I had that in my soul,” he said.

The TV veteran was nominated for a Daytime Emmy award for his work on “All My Children,” and received a Tony nomination for his performance as Zach in the original run of “A Chorus Line.”

LuPone spent much of his later career focused on theater development and education, opening the MCC Theater alongside Bernard Telsey and William Cantler.

Under his leadership, the MCC Theater produced shows including “School Girls; or, the African Mean Girls Play,” “Frozen” and the Pulitzer Prize-winning “Wit,” the theater said.

Paying tribute to Lupone in a statement shared on the MCC website, co-artistic directors Telsey and Cantler remembered him as “a force, an advocate, complex in the richest ways, overflowing with a youthful enthusiasm, and deeply wise as he looked in to our souls. He was our best friend.”