Aida Turturro

The Sopranos is one of the most celebrated series in the history of television, this year alone (its last) garnering 15 Emmy nominations. In 2004, Aida Turturro, sandwiched in-between James Gandolfini and Edie Falco, whoop it up at the Primetime Emmy Awards ceremony after the show won for Best Drama Series, the first cable show ever to do so.

Turturro stands with New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly and with fellow Sopranos cast member Lorraine Bracco at a charity function. Bracco and Turturro have received Emmy nominations this year in the same category (Turturro's second nomination, Bracco's fourth). Asked if this was awkward, Turturro told an interviewer she preferred it -- this way, "it's all in the family and we get more recognition for the show."

Family, as it turns out, is a big theme in Turturro's career, and her life -- and certainly in "The Sopranos." Here, as Janice Soprano, she argues with her brother the mobster Tony Soprano, played by James Gandolfini. The two actors appeared together on Broadway and in a couple of movies before being cast together in the HBO TV series.

Of course, Janice shoots dead her first husband, played by David Proval. Here they pose together before a panel discussion on the show at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts in 2000.

But by the sixth season in 2006, she bonds, and breeds, with Bobby, played by Steven R. Schirripa.

Turturro has said that a genuine affection had developed among the cast members. Here Schirripa kisses her gallantly as the Directors Guild of America honors in 2006 in New York City...

Here at a party at the American Museum of Natural History in New York in 2003, co-stars Jamie-Lynn Sigler and Robert Iler kiss the actress who plays their Aunt Janice on the show.

But the family in Aida Turturro's acting career is not just a surrogate one. Here she attends a screening in 2004 with her cousin, John Turturro, of "2BPerfectlyHonest," in which they both had roles. She was a featured performer in her cousin's directorial debut in 1993, "Mac."

She also performed in her cousin's film "Romance and Cigarettes", along with Susan Sarandon (2nd left) and her long-time acting partner, James Gandolfini. The movie, a musical about a Queens construction worker who has an affair, has been shown at film festivals (here they are in Venice in 2005), but has not yet been commercially released.

"I want to get married one day and have kids. I'm a real mush," she told the Detroi News. "I like acting, but it's not my whole life. I've done 40 movies. I'm too old to become a big star, and I don't want to be a big star. I just want to pay my bills, have a nice life, and have time off to be with my family."