James Gandolfini - Tony Soprano - “The Sopranos,” the groundbreaking HBO series.

Estimates place his estate at $70 million.

1. He signed his will only six months before he died.

2. Gandolfini actually did have one trust, for his 13-year-old son that was funded by $7 million in life insurance. The life insurance aspect also shielded the money from estate taxes.

3. 20% went to his wife, who has an unlimited exemption as his spouse.

4. The rest, above the $5.25 million exclusion in 2013, is exposed to federal and state estate tax. The federal bite is 40 percent, and it scales up from there with the state tax. Published estimates put the tax bill at $30 million.

5. A house Gandolfini owned in Italy that he included in his will - many European countries have forced heirship that you need to have a foreign will that covers that.

6. The other point is that Gandolfini drafted his will soon after his daughter’s birth, which is commendable. But she gets her entire inheritance at age 21. Think of yourself at 21. Philip Seymour Hoffman was a master actor finely attuned to the details of the characters he played. He was not so in sync with his estate planning.

Hoffman’s surprise ending - dying in his Manhattan apartment at 46 with a needle in his arm. He left behind an estate estimated at $35 million, along with a big tax bill.

1. The first $5.34 million is excluded from federal estate tax, which is indexed for inflation. New York, however, exempts only the first $1 million.

2. He left some of his estate in a trust for his son and the rest to Mimi O’Donnell, his longtime girlfriend and mother of his three children. He did not account for two of his children because he update his plan.

3. Because Hoffman was not married to his girlfriend, she will not benefit from the spousal deduction of an additional $5.34 million. And apparently, he did not have life insurance, because O’Donnell’s lawyer said she wanted a quick resolution of the estate because she needed the money. Even the very wealthy should have life insurance for liquidity when the family needs it most.

4. Hoffman drafted his will in 2004 after his son Cooper was born. By not updating his will, he did not account for his two daughters born after 2004.

5. He did set up a trust for his son, which pays him the total at 30. One of the most New York of New Yorkers, Ed Koch, was one of them. When he was mayor of New York City in the 1970s and ’80s, he would famously ask constituents, “How’m I doin’?”

In the case of his estate, his heirs can return a resounding “Meh.”

He left most of his estimated $10–$11 million estate to his sisters and three nephews whom he adored.

1. But they will be receiving $3 million less because of the estate tax bite.

2. It was another case of not having a trust that would have helped shield his estate from prying eyes and some taxation, depending on its structure.

Take the case of the “Fast & Furious” actor Paul W. Walker IV, who happened to have met a fast and furious end in a speeding Porsche.

He had a trust, but it didn’t have anything in it. Consequently, his pour-over will funneled his $25 million estate into the trust. Trusts are typically funded in life with the pour-over will directing the remainder into the trust, which saves probate costs and avoids public scrutiny.

1. Walker did draft a will early, when he was 28, around the time he did his first “Fast & Furious” movie. That and the five that followed made Walker very wealthy, but he did not update his estate plan in the intervening dozen years. Because the trust is private, we don’t know how well the old structure supported the new wealth, but we do know that a plan needs more periodic updating to reflect new factors.

2. Another thing we know is that he named his mother as guardian of his 15-year-old daughter Meadow, rather than the girl’s mother, who is reported to be an alcoholic. Overriding parental rights is always difficult in court and, in fact, Rebecca Soteros did get custody of her daughter in late March, pending a successful rehab stint. The lesson there is if there is not an agreement in life, sometimes they won’t get it done.

All the way over to the complete opposite side of the wealth spectrum was William M. Davidson, the Detroit Pistons owner who left an estate worth between $2.2 billion and $5.5 billion, according to wide-ranging estimates, when he died at age 86 in 2009.

1. The story followed a familiar theme after he died and the Internal Revenue Service submitted a $2.8 billion estate tax bill, which some say might set a record.

2. The family needed liquidity in a hurry and sold Palace Sports and Entertainment, which included the Pistons and the stadium, supposedly for $325 million. It was a nice return for the $8 million Davidson paid in 1974, but the price was at least $100 million under value, according to some reports.

3. It is a familiar problem for asset-rich estates. Besides sophisticated trusts that can best employ tax advantages, a good answer for many of these problems is life insurance. Then there are the estates that might defy planning altogether. In the case of Evel Knievel, any advisor would have faced some stiff challenges.

1. When the legendary stuntman died at 69 of pulmonary problems in 2007, he named his second ex-wife as the sole beneficiary. For the honor, she inherited about $12,500 in assets. He left only memories for his five children and successive generations.

2. Shelly Saltman had an insider’s perspective of Knievel because he helped promote Knievel’s famous Snake River jump as his press agent. He used that perspective to write a book about the experience in which he detailed Knievel’s abuse of drugs and family members.

3. Knievel was not happy and awaited Saltman in the parking lot of a studio in Southern California to express his feelings. Saltman approached Knievel and was pinned down by two people as Knievel swung an aluminum baseball bat at him. Saltman managed to wrest one arm free and blocked his head. His head was saved but his arm was shattered.

A judge awarded Saltman $12.75 million in a subsequent lawsuit. Knievel declared bankruptcy and never paid it. But ignoring the judgment didn’t make it go away. It just passed the problem on to the estate. Saltman is going after the estate for more than $100 million, which he said has accumulated in interest.

4. So, no company would have covered Knievel for life insurance.