Al Gore Shows Soprano-Level Influence

Al Gore is more powerful than we realized. Gore, and Gore alone, got an advance copy of the final episode of The Sopranos. Gore had to be traveling so he called Brad Grey, the chairman of Paramount, requesting a copy. Grey initially turned him down, but, unlike the finale to The Sopranos, the story didn’t end abruptly:

But after a night of tossing and turning, Mr. Grey had a change of heart. On the Sunday of the finale, he had a Halliburton-made steel case, containing a copy of the episode, delivered to the tarmac where Mr. Gore’s plane sat in Chicago. The case was locked with a code (some might call it a “lockbox”). Mr. Gore could not open it until the plane was in the air, when he was instructed to call Mr. Grey’s office for the numeric code. Mr. Gore sent Mr. Grey a photo of himself trying to pry open the case, which Mr. Grey now keeps on his desk.

And unlike that final episode, this story had a postscript. After the tale of Mr. Gore’s special delivery made the rounds of Hollywood political circles, the Republican candidate Rudolph W. Giuliani called Mr. Grey, a longtime friend, to complain. Why didn’t he get a special “Sopranos” delivery, too?

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