Feature: The watches of The Sopranos
In one episode of The Sopranos, ageing old-school mob boss Carmine Lupertazzi reprimands the show’s main character, Tony Soprano, for wearing beachwear at a family barbecue. “A don doesn’t wear shorts,” he lectures the younger mafioso. And you can imagine him saying something similar about watches had Tony been rocking a plastic Casio G-Shock instead of a gold Rolex.
From The Godfather to Goodfellas, we’re accustomed to seeing on-screen gangsters decked out in silk suits and Italian leather shoes (although the tracksuits they wear “off-duty” are as criminal as their business activities).
So, it stands to reason that their watches aren’t too sloppy either. The cast of The Sopranos—which ran from 1999 to 2007 and is hailed by many as the greatest TV series ever made—wore a mix of the predictable (Rolex) and the curve-ball (Oris), while one character was a staunch Cartier devotee.
Despite The Sopranos being broadcast in an era when TV watch-spotting wasn’t the widespread pastime it is today, the props department brought their A-game to this seminal HBO series, as we’re about to find out…
Tony Soprano wears: Rolex
Head of a New Jersey off-shoot of the New York mafia, Tony Soprano (played by the late James Gandolfini) is an alpha male right down to his Gucci loafers. It’s impossible to imagine him wearing anything other than the Rolex Day-Date we see throughout the entire eight seasons.
A gold Rolex Day-Date could not be more apt for a born leader like Tony Soprano
Whether he was aware that the nickname for this watch is the “President”, we’ll never know, but Tony would have taken great delight in such knowledge owing to his fascination with great leaders like Winston Churchill. The model he wore was a classic yellow-gold version with champagne dial, and we hate the idea that his hapless son AJ would have inherited it and probably cashed it in at the local pawn shop to buy a new drum kit.
Junior Soprano wears: Rolex
Tony’s Uncle Junior famously gets his wrist stuck down the plughole of his kitchen sink in one episode. Thankfully it’s his non-watch-wearing arm, thus avoiding the ignominy of his two-tone Rolex Datejust on a Jubilee bracelet getting coated in gunk.
Corrado "Junior" Soprano wore a two-tone Datejust
It’s apt that Junior’s watch is lower down in the Rolex hierarchy; he may be Tony’s uncle, but his nephew is the de facto head of the family, and Junior’s comparatively humble Datejust is symbolic of that relationship. In later scenes, with Junior succumbing to dementia, the watch is nowhere to be seen. Did he lose it? Was it stolen off him? Or did a family member remove it for safe-keeping? We’ll never know.
Christopher Moltisanti wears: Cartier
Volatile, impressionable and sporadically questioning his loyalty to his uncle Tony and the mafia, Christopher Moltisanti (Michael Imperioli) flirts with the idea of leaving it all behind and becoming a screenwriter. Maybe it’s his brushes with Hollywood royalty while pursuing this dream that give him a taste for Cartier, “the jeweller of kings”.
Christopher Moltisanti was a Cartier aficionado, owning three models
Chris wears three models during the series, namely a stainless-steel Roadster chronograph (pictured above), a yellow-gold Tank and a yellow-gold Pasha with grilled dial, possibly symbolising the mob life from which he can never escape. And could the discontinued Roadster also be a subtle nod to the manner of Chris’s untimely demise?
Vito Spatafore wears: Oris
Things took an especially unexpected twist in season 5 when it was revealed that Sopranos mobster Vito Spatafore was a closeted gay man. Leaving his family—and the mafia— for rural New Hampshire, he eventually ends up taking on menial carpentry work at a farm but struggles with the banality of the job, cursing when he checks his watch and finds out he’s barely half-way through the morning. The watch? It’s clearly an Oris world-timer with a second time zone, surely a reference to Vito’s ultimately doomed dual life.
An Oris Worldtimer similar to Vito's
Oris watches appear in another episode where budding filmmaker Christopher Moltisanti gets a taste of the freebies given away to Hollywood stars. Ben Kingsley, playing himself in an unforgettable cameo, walks away from a VIP luxury lounge with no less than two of the latest Oris models, gratis.
Salvatore “Pussy” Bonpensiero wears: Rolex
Is Salvatore “Pussy” Bonpensiero’s yellow-gold Rolex Day-Date with a red “stella” dial an ironic nod to the blood oath he has taken as a mafia member? Or maybe it’s foreshadowing his gory death at the hands of his best friends after they find out he’s been working as an FBI informant.
Great watch, pity it ended up at the bottom of the ocean
No doubt Pussy, as he’s known to his friends, wore a Day-Date to emulate his best friend and boss Tony—but that didn’t get him a pass once Tony found out he’d been ratting him out. In his final scene, before he’s shot to death on Tony’s boat and dumped in the sea, Pussy is clearly wearing his watch, so we can assume it’s now lying on the ocean bed (or “sleeping with the fishes”, as the mob like to say), still attached to Pussy’s bullet-ridden corpse.
Carmela Soprano wears Rolex and Baume & Mercier
Tony’s long-suffering wife Carmela (Edie Falco) wears a two-tone Rolex Lady Datejust, a predictable choice for a gangster’s wife and symbolic of her loyalty to her serially unfaithful husband, who wears a Day-Date.
Like Junior Soprano, Carmela wore a two-tone Rolex Datejust
Later in the series, Tony gifts her a Baume & Mercier model after returning from a business trip, which seems to delight Carmela. But would she have been as happy if she realised that the Patek Philippe Tony bought Carmela’s cousin for helping him with a lucrative business deal was worth several times more than the watch he bought his own wife? It speaks volumes about Tony’s priorities in life.
Paulie "Walnuts" Gualtieri wears: Movado
Tony’s long-time friend and associate Paulie “Walnuts” Gualtieri isn’t one of the Soprano crew’s biggest earners, spending much of his ill-gotten gains on his ailing mother and her luxury care home. He shows little interest in material wealth, hence his relatively modest gold-plated Movado Esperanza.
A Movado similar to the one worn by show favourite Paulie Gualtieri. Image: Courtesy of Bonhams
Interestingly, it’s almost identical to the watch worn by North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un—although Paulie’s looks more premium with its gold-plated bracelet as opposed to a black leather strap.
Furio Giunta wears: Zenith
Italians love their watches, famously setting horological trends, not following them. And, unlike the other Soprano members, Furio (Federico Castelluccio) was 100% Italian, having been brought over from Naples to add muscle to Tony’s crew. Despite proving a formidable enforcer (no one has ever collected debts with such brutal efficiency), Furio is prone to the odd touch of flamboyance, as shown in his outré shirt collection.
Headstrong Furio displayed a touch of individualism with his Zenith El Primero
This Zenith El Primero Rainbow, made for the French Ministry of Defence, therefore embodied Furio’s character—tough, capable and full of character.
Richie Aprile wears: Cartier
We’re not entirely convinced that an elegant gold vintage Cartier Tank was the right watch for Richie Aprile, arguably the least endearing character in all six series of The Sopranos. Richie (played by David Proval) was a sadistic thug who got his comeuppance when he was shot by his fiancé, Tony’s sister Janice.
Richie Aprile: loathsome character, great watch. Image: Courtesy of Bonhams
We can only assume that Richie stole this off one of his many victims, just like he stole Rocco DiMeo’s leather jacket.
