Biography
This page uses content from the Anthony Quinn biography page on the English version of Wikipedia and is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. This list of authors can be seen in the page history. Rotten Tomatoes disclaims any and all warranties as to the accuracy or reliability of the content.
- For Anthony Tylor Quinn the actor born in 1964, see Anthony Tyler Quinn.
- For Anthony Quinn the Australian professional rugby league player, see Anthony Quinn (rugby league player).
Anthony Quinn (April 21, 1915 Chihuahua, Mexico – June 3, 2001 Boston, Massachusetts) was a two-time Academy Award-winning Mexican-American actor, as well as a painter and writer. He is best known for his roles in two Hollywood films, the title role in Zorba the Greek and his Oscar-winning performance in Viva Zapata!.
History
Antonio Rudolfo Oaxaca Quinn was born to an Irish father and a Mexican mother, a combination that later facilitated his playing a wide range of ethnic roles. He grew up in the Boyle Heights and the Echo Park neighborhoods of Los Angeles, California, attending the Polytechnic High School and later Belmont High School. He did not graduate; in the 1990s, Tucson High School in Tucson, Arizona awarded him a high school diploma.
In his youth, Quinn boxed, then studied art and architecture under Frank Lloyd Wright at the latter's Arizona residence and studio, Taliesin, and the two men became friends. When Quinn revealed that he was drawn to acting, Wright encouraged this major change in career direction.
After a brief stint in the theater, Quinn launched his film career playing character roles in several 1936 films, including Parole (his debut) and The Milky Way. He mainly played "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 not a major star. So he made a successful return to the theater, including playing Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire on Broadway.
Returning to the screen in the early 1950s,Quinn specialized in tough, macho roles. He was cast in a series of B-adventures like Mask of the Avenger (1951). A big break was his playing opposite Marlon Brando in Elia Kazan's Viva Zapata! (1952). His supporting role as Zapata's brother won Quinn his first Oscar, the first Mexican-American to win any Academy Award. He appeared in several Italian films starting in 1953, turning in one of his best performances as a dim-witted, thuggish, and volatile strongman in Federico Fellini's La Strada (1954), playing alongside Giulietta Masina. Quinn won his second Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for portraying the painter Gauguin in Vincente Minnelli's Van Gogh biopic, Lust for Life (1956). This Award was all the more remarkable given that he was onscreen for all of 8 minutes. The following year, he received yet another Oscar nomination for his part in George Cukor's Wild Is the Wind. In "The River's Edge" (1957), he played the husband of the former girlfriend (played by Debra Paget) of a killer, played by Ray Milland, who turns up with a stolen fortune and forces Quinn and Paget at gunpoint to guide him safely to Mexico.
As the decade came to a close, Quinn allowed his age to show, and he began his transformation into a major character actor. His formerly trim physique filled out, his hair grayed, and his once smooth, swarthy face weathered into an appealing series of crags and crinkles. His careworn demeanor made him a convincing Greek resistance fighter in 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). In that year, he also played the title role in Barabbas, based on the novel by Pär Lagerkvist. The film is an Easter season favorite down to the present day. The success of Zorba the Greek in 1964 was arguably the high water mark of Quinn's career, and resulted in another Oscar nomination. Later successes that decade include his title role in the The Magus, based on the novel by John Fowles, and The Secret of Santa Vittoria (1969).
In the 1970s, 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).
On January 5, 1982, the Belvedere Public Library in East Los Angeles was renamed in honor of Anthony Quinn. The present library sits on the site of his family's former home. [1] [[Los Angeles County Anthony Quinn Public Library.
In 1982, he starred in the Lion of the Desert, together with Irene Papas, Oliver Reed, Rod Steiger, and John Gielgud. Quinn played the real-life Bedouin leader Omar Mukhtar who fought Mussolini's Italian troops in the deserts of Libya. The film, produced and directed by Moustapha Akkad, is now critically acclaimed, but performed poorly at the box office because of negative publicity in the West at the time of its release, stemming from its having been partially funded by Libya's Muammar al-Qaddafi. In 1983, he reprised his most famous role, playing Zorba the Greek for 362 performances in a successful revival of the Kander and Ebb musical Zorba.
His film career slowed during the 1990s, but Quinn nonetheless continued to work steadily, appearing in Jungle Fever (1991), Last Action Hero (1993), and A Walk in the Clouds (1995). In 1994, he played Zeus semi-regularly on the syndicated series Hercules .
Quinn spent his last years in Bristol, Rhode Island. He died at age 86, of pneumonia and respiratory failure while suffering from terminal throat cancer, shortly after completing his role in the film Avenging Angelo (2001). His funeral was held in a Baptist church; late in life, he had joined the Four Square evangelical Christian community. He is buried in a family plot near Bristol.
Trivia
When Quinn made an appearance on The Tonight Show hosted by Jay Leno, the orchestra played Syrtaki aka "Zorba's Dance", the theme from Zorba the Greek. Quinn came on stage dancing a few steps of the dance, to huge applause. But once seated, he remarked, "I hate that song! Everywhere I go, they play that song!"
Family
Quinn's personal life was as volatile and passionate as the characters he played in films. His first spouse was Katherine (Cecil B. DeMille's adopted daughter), by whom he had three children; they divorced in 1956. The following year he embarked on a long and tempestuous marriage to costume designer Iolanda Quinn. The union crumbled in 1993 when Quinn impregnated his secretary; the two had a second child in 1996. Quinn had three known mistresses and fathered a total of 13 children, among them Alex A. Quinn, Francesco Quinn, Lorenzo, Valentina, and Sean Quinn, a New Jersey real estate agent.
Painting and writing
Prior to his acting career, Anthony Quinn painted and sketched winning various awards and competitions throughout his teenage years. Fine art later gave Anthony Quinn an identity outside the world of acting—unscripted and his own. Always searching and exploring, Anthony Quinn worked on perfecting his artistic style throughout the world wherever filming and his output of paintings and sculptures was extraordinary. He championed many of the concepts central to modernist sculpture, including “truth to material,” direct carving, and inspiration from so-called primitive art, all of which became central to twentieth century practice. “Found Art” as Anthony Quinn called it was another inspiration—he found art in everything from tree branches and shells to architectural fragments.
In the early 1980s Anthony Quinn’s art began to be exhibited on an international level. His work is now represented in both public and private collections throughout the world.
Since his death in 2001, Anthony Quinn's art has grown significantly in popularity selling in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. More recently, his art has increased in cultural importance and evolved from commercial gallery setting to the institution of the fine art museum through an international traveling exhibition. Various publications have been written on Anthony Quinn's artistic drive and style and his work continues to be interpreted and studied.
He wrote two memoirs, The Original Sin (1972) and One Man Tango (1997), a number of scripts, and a series of unpublished stories currently in the collection of his archive.
Quotes
- "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."
References
External links
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify the biographical information on this page under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation.
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