Anthony Quinn
For Anthony Tylor Quinn the actor born in 1964, see Anthony Tyler Quinn.Anthony Quinn (
April 21,
1915 –
June 3,
2001) was a two-time
Academy Award-winning
Mexican-American actor, as well as a
painter and
writer. He is best known for his performances in the popular
Hollywood movies
Zorba the Greek and
Viva Zapata!.
He was born
Antonio Rudolfo Oaxaca Quinn in
Chihuahua, Chihuahua,
Mexico to an
Irish father and a
Mexican mother, a combination that would later allow him to play many different ethnicities. He grew up in the
Boyle Heights neighborhood of
Los Angeles, California. Quinn left school early (much later, he received his first high school diploma from
Tucson High School in
Tucson, Arizona in the
1990s), and was a
prizefighter and a painter before becoming an actor.
Quinn launched his film career playing character roles in several 1936 films, including
Parole (his debut) and
The Milky Way, after a brief stint in the theater. Quinn remained relegated to playing "ethnic" villains in Paramount films through the 1940s. By 1947, he was a veteran of over 50 films and had played everything from Indians, Mafia dons, Hawaiian chiefs, Filipino freedom-fighters, Chinese guerrillas, and comical Arab sheiks, but he was still not a major star. So he returned to the theater, where for three years he found success on Broadway in such roles as Stanley Kowalski in
A Streetcar Named Desire.
During the 1950s, Quinn specialized in tough, macho roles, but as the decade ended, he allowed his age to show. His formerly trim physique filled out, his hair grayed, and his once smooth, swarthy face weathered into an appealing series of crags and crinkles. Upon his return to the screen in the early 1950s, Quinn was cast in a series of B-adventures like
Mask of the Avenger (1951). He got one of his big breaks playing opposite
Marlon Brando in
Elia Kazan's
Viva Zapata! (1952). His supporting role as Zapata's brother won Quinn his first
Oscar and after that, Quinn was given larger roles in a variety of features. He went to Italy in 1953 and appeared in several films, turning in one of his best performances as a dim-witted, thuggish, and volatile strongman in
Federico Fellini's
La Strada, having as his main partner the Italian actress
Giulietta Masina (1954). Quinn won his second Best Supporting Actor Oscar portraying the painter
Gauguin in
Vincente Minnelli's
Lust for Life (1956), all the more remarkable when you consider that he was only onscreen for 8 minutes. The following year, he received another Oscar nomination for
George Cukor's
Wild Is the Wind.
His careworn demeanor made him a convincing Greek resistance fighter in the war film
The Guns of Navarone (1961), an ideal ex-boxer in
Requiem for a Heavyweight and a natural for the role of
Auda ibu Tayi in
Lawrence of Arabia (both 1962). The success of
Zorba the Greek in 1964 was the high water mark of Quinn's career during the '60s, and offered him another Oscar nomination. He also started in the title role of
John Fowles'
The Magus. As the decade progressed, the quality of his film work noticeably diminished, though there were some successes such as
The Secret of Santa Vittoria (1969).
|
Moustapha Akkad (left) directs Anthony Quinn on the set of Mohammad, Messenger of God (1976) |
The 1970s offered little change and Quinn became known as a ham, albeit a well-respected one. In 1971, he starred in the short-lived television drama
Man in the City. In 1977, He starred in the movie
Mohammad, Messenger of God (aka
The Message) about the origin of Islam, and the message of prophet Mohammad. His subsequent television appearances were sporadic (among them
Jesus of Nazareth).
In 1982 he starred in The
Lion of the Desert movie, together with
Irene Papas,
Oliver Reed,
Rod Steiger and
John Gielgud. It was about the real-life
Bedouin leader
Omar Mukhtar (Quinn) who fought
Mussolini's Italian troops in the deserts of
Libya. The movie (which was produced and directed by late
Moustapha Akkad) is now critically acclaimed after initially receiving negative publicity in the West for being partially funded by
Libya's
Muammar al-Qaddafi, thus its relatively poor performance at the box office. In 1983 he revisited his most famous characterization when he played in a successful revival of
Kander and Ebb's musical version of
Zorba, which ran at the
Broadway Theatre in
New York for 362 performances.
In 1994, he became a semi-regular guest (playing Zeus) on the syndicated
Hercules series. Though his film career slowed considerably during the 1990s, Quinn continued to work steadily, appearing in films as diverse as
Jungle Fever (1991),
Last Action Hero (1993), and
A Walk in the Clouds (1995).
Shortly after completing his final film role in
Avenging Angelo (2001), Anthony Quinn died of
pneumonia and respiratory failure while suffering from terminal
throat cancer at the age of 86 in
Bristol, Rhode Island, where he had lived out the twilight of his life and is buried today in a family cemetery plot. His funeral service was held in a Baptist church; he had come to belong to the
Four Square evangelical Christian community.
Quinn proved as volatile and passionate as his screen persona in his personal life. He divorced his wife Katherine, with whom he had three children, in 1956. The following year he embarked on a tempestuous thirty-one-year marriage to costume designer Iolanda Quinn. The union crumbled in 1993 when Quinn had an affair with his secretary that resulted in a baby; the two shared a second child in 1996. In total, Quinn fathered thirteen children, among them
Alex A. Quinn,
Francesco Quinn,
Lorenzo Quinn,
Valentina Quinn, and Sean Quinn, who is a real estate agent in
New Jersey. Anthony Quinn had three known mistresses.
Quinn was a student and friend of
Frank Lloyd Wright.
In his free time, when he wasn't acting, Quinn continued to paint and became a well-known artist.
Anthony Quinn wrote and co-wrote two memoirs,
The Original Sin (1972) and
One Man Tango (1997). In the latter, Quinn is candid and apologetic about some of his past's darker moments.
"In Europe an actor is an artist. In Hollywood, if he isn't working, he's a bum."
"I never get the girl. I wind up with a country instead."
*
Classic Movies (1939 - 1969): Anthony Quinn*
http://www.beckerfilms.com/quinn.html
