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Anthony Quinn April 21, 1915 - June 3, 2001Anthony Quinn has died. He's a little too hammy to be one of my favorites. But you gotta give him props just for surviving, winning two Oscars and making films in seven different decades. Down the street, he's recently had a showing of his art, here in San Francisco. A gigantic man. Of Mex and Irish decent he played Mex, Irish, Greek, Arabian, Italian, Spanish, etc, etc. Quinn was always somebody my brother and I knew well, his films I mean. We'd both been very familiar with Lawrence of Arabia, The Guns of Navarone, The Ox-Bow Incident, a couple of Road pictures... So, I always think of Steve when I think of Quinn. I combined this info from two AP articles: Oscar-Winning Actor Quinn Dies PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) - Two-time Oscar winner Anthony Quinn, a former shoeshine boy and preacher who became an international leading man with a film career spanning six decades, has died of respiratory failure. He was 86. Both Quinn's screen presence and personal style were larger than life. The barrel-chested actor fathered 13 children and starred in 100 feature films, including the fierce Bedouin leader in "Lawrence of Arabia'' in 1962 and the earthy hero of the 1964 film "Zorba the Greek.'' He won his first Oscar for his work in the 1952 film "Viva Zapata!'' as the brother of Mexican revolutionary leader Emiliano Zapata. He picked up his second award for supporting actor for the 1956 drama "Lust for Life.'' In a 1987 interview, Quinn said he reached most of the goals he set for himself as a young boy. "I never satisfied that kid but I think he and I have made a deal now,'' he said, referring to his younger self. "It's like climbing a mountain: I didn't take him up Mount Everest, but I took him up Mount Whitney. "And I think that's not bad.''
"He was larger than life,'' Cianci said. "I was proud to call him a friend.'' Quinn's family asked Cianci to make the announcement. The actor had been hospitalized for 17 days with pneumonia and respiratory problems. Quinn was "one of the most extraordinary actors the cinema has known,'' said Gina Lollobrigida, who played Esmeralda to Quinn's Quasimodo in the 1956 French-Italian movie "Notre Dame de Paris.'' "You could learn from him, from his humility. He loved life and he profited from it until the end,'' Lollobrigida told France-Info radio. Quinn was born in Mexico of a Mexican mother and an Irish father, who died while fighting for revolutionary leader Pancho Villa, and raised in poverty in East Los Angeles. In a film career that stretched more than 50 years, Quinn portrayed characters including kings, Indians, a pope, a boxer and an artist. One of his most poignant roles was the brutish, tragic circus strongman in Federico Fellini's 1954 film "La Strada.'' "I never get the girl,'' Quinn once joked in an interview. "I wind up with a country instead.'' To many, Quinn's Oscar-nominated characterization of the Greek peasant Zorba in 1964 remained his most memorable role. The ouzo-drinking and bouzouki-dancing Zorba was Quinn's favorite role as well, so much so that he returned to the stage in 1983 in a revival of the musical inspired by the film. As a child, he shined shoes, sold papers and preached. After working as a movie extra, he met and married the adopted daughter of Cecil B. De Mille, Katherine. A real-life artist, sculptor and author, he studied under architect Frank Lloyd Wright, who encouraged him to take acting lessons. He was born on April 21, 1915, in Chihuahua, Mexico, where his half-Irish father Francisco (Frank) Quinn had married a Mexican girl of Aztec Indian ancestry, Manuela, while fighting for revolutionary leader Pancho Villa. The family moved to El Paso, Texas, and three years later to Los Angeles in search of work. Quinn was raised in a poor district of Los Angeles and never forgot his past. As a teen-ager, he underwent minor tongue surgery to improve his speech and afterwards took voice lessons at a Los Angeles drama school, paying the fee by cleaning windows and floors. He began appearing in stage productions at 18. Mae West gave Quinn his first big chance on stage in the play "Clean Beds" which she financed and produced. His part was a take-off of John Barrymore, then an aging actor fading from the limelight. Quinn's first screen role -- a 45-second appearance -- came in the film "Parole" in 1936. His role as painter Paul Gauguin in "Lust for Life'' earned him his second Oscar. He was on screen for only eight minutes in the film about the life of Vincent van Gogh. "He was motivated by the passion for his art,'' said Irene Nagy Dessewffy, a friend of Quinn's who produced art shows and publications featuring his work. ``I saw 29 opening nights of Zorba, and other productions in between, and every single night it was as if it were the first time. He did it with a passion. "He was constantly drawing, or constantly writing, or constantly sketching. He never stopped,'' Dessewffy added. "He was never doing nothing.'' In the 1962 film "Requiem for a Heavyweight,'' Quinn's character was battered by Cassius Clay, playing himself. The young boxer would later change his name to Muhammad Ali. "He kicked the heck out of me,'' the actor said in 1997. After leading roles became less frequent, he left Hollywood to live and work in Italy. "What could I play there? They only think of me as a Mexican, an Indian or a Mafia don,'' he said in a 1977 interview with The Associated Press. He was divorced from Katherine in 1965 after he fathered two children with Italian costume designer Iolanda Addolari, sparking an international scandal. In 1972, Quinn wrote his autobiography, "The Original Sin,'' which has been translated into more than 18 languages. He followed with a second volume titled "Suddenly Sunset.'' The characteristically straightforward actor shunned the use of ghost writers, favoring blunt honesty over Hollywood image-making. "I could either lie or tell the truth,'' he said. "I figured the only value in such a book would be to describe my life as I lived it.''
As his film career slowed in recent years, Quinn devoted most of his time to painting and sculpting. Cianci said Quinn had moved to Bristol because "He wanted to get away from all that New York stuff, all the Hollywood hustle and bustle.'' He had recently worked in television, appearing in a 1990 TV movie based on Ernest Hemingway's classic "The Old Man and the Sea'' and the 1996 HBO movie "Gotti.'' Quinn's second marriage, to Iolanda Quinn, ended in 1997 after 31 years. He is survived by his wife, Kathy Benvin, who is the mother of the two youngest of his 13 children. He is the father of nine sons and four daughters by his three wives and three mistresses. Along the way he managed to amass an estate valued in the hundreds of millions of dollars, including an art collection that boasts an original Picasso. He also became a noted impressionist painter and sculptor. His first child, Christopher, drowned when he was 4 years old in a pond at the home of W.C. Fields, who lived next door. Dessewffy said Quinn grieved about the loss all his life. (I, tedstrong.com, remember reading about this in a WC Fields [whom I love] bio. Quinn went over to Fields' house and they just cried together for a long time. Fields, of course, died a couple of years later, pretty much from boozing it up too hard.) "He passionately adores all his children - he has many kids - and I think much more so than anybody realizes,'' Dessewffy said. "He absolutely worshipped all his children, he worshipped all his kids, whether they were the oldest or the youngest, he loved all his kids.'' Biography from Leonard Maltin's Movie Encyclopedia: Actor. (b. Apr. 21, 1915, Chihuahua, Mexico.) Dynamic, prolific character actor and occasional leading man who, during the course of his nearly 60 years in motion pictures, has played nearly every exotic ethnic type imaginable at least once. For much of his screen career an effective, quietly persuasive per former, Quinn in recent years has taken to overacting and has sometimes exercised poor judgment in accepting roles. Born to an Irish father and Mexican mother, Quinn enjoyed a brief career as a prizefighter before entering movies in 1936. He had small roles in Parole, Sworn Enemy and Night Waitress (all 1936) before signing with Paramount, for which he appeared exclusively until 1940, mostly playing gangsters and Indians. Quinn's Paramount films include The Plainsman (1936, directed by Cecil B. DeMille, who became Quinn's father-in-law the following year), Waikiki Wedding, The Last Train From Madrid, Daughter of Shanghai (all 1937), The Buccaneer (also for DeMille), Dangerous to Know, Tip-Off Girls, Bulldog Drummond in Africa, King of Alcatraz (all 1938), King of Chinatown, Television Spy DeMille's Union Pacific (all 1939), Parole Fixer, The Ghost Breakers and Road to Singapore (all 1940). During the war years Quinn worked mostly at Warner Bros. and 20th CenturyFox, although he did return to Paramount for a hilarious deadpan turn as an Arab sheik in the Crosby-Hope vehicle Road to Morocco (1942). Still a character player, he was assigned increasingly important and showy roles in bigger, more expensive pictures, including City for Conquest (1940), Blood and Sand, Manpower(both 1941),They Died With Their Boots On (also 1941, as Chief Crazy Horse), The Black Swan, Larceny, Inc (both 1942), The Ox-Bow Incident, Guadalcanal Diary (both 1943), Buffalo Bill, Roger Touhy, Gangster, Irish Eyes are Smiling (all 1944), Where Do We Go From Here? and Back to Bataan (both 1945, superb in the latter as a Filipino guerilla, costarring with John Wayne). Quinn and his wife Katherine, DeMille's adopted daughter and a talented actress in her own right, starred together in Black Gold (1947), a low-budget sleeper released by Allied Artists. Playing a proud but kindly Indian who discovers oil on his property and allows a Chinese refugee to race his prize thoroughbred, Quinn delivered a warm, heartfelt performance that ranks among his best. He subsequently appeared in Sinbad the Sailor, Tycoon (both 1947), The Brave Bulls (1951, marvelous in this bullfighting story), Against All Flags and The Brigand before winning his first Academy Award as the brother of a Mexican revolutionary (played by Marlon Brando) in Viva Zapata! (all 1952). (He also replaced Brando in the original Broadway production of "A Streetcar Named Desire.") Quinn's career picked up following his Oscar win; he got better roles and worked almost nonstop throughout the remainder of the decade. High spots include La Strada (1954, the classic Fellini film and Best Foreign Film Oscar-winner, in which he played a brutish, simple-minded strongman who tours with acrobat Richard Basehart), Ulysses (1955, as Antinous), Lust for Life (1956, playing artist Paul Gauguin, a performance for which he won his second Best Supporting Actor Oscar), and The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1957, playing the hunchbacked Quasimodo to Gina Lollobrigida's Esmeralda). His other 1950s films include Mask of the Avenger (1951), The World in His Arms (1952), Seminole, City Beneath the Sea, Ride, Vaquero!, Blowing Wild (all 1953), The Long Wait (1954), The Magnificent Matador, Seven Cities of Gold (all 1955), The Wild Party (1956), The River's Edge, Wild Is the Wind (both 1957, Oscar-nominated for his work in the latter), Hot Spell (1958), Warlock and Last Train From Gun Hill (both 1959). His father-in-law gave Quinn a shot at directing with the 1958 remake of The Buccaneer a critical and commercial disappointment.
In 1959 he chalked up a memorable portrayal as a stoic Eskimo in The Savage Innocents. By now his once slender, swarthy face had become craggy, and he'd put on quite a bit of weight. That stood him in good stead for his role as the former prizefighter humiliated by his work as a "professional" wrestler in Requiem for a Heavyweight (1962). That same year he contributed a vibrant performance as an amoral Bedouin chieftain (who is "a river to my people") in David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia In 1964 he secured another Academy Award nomination, this time for his starring role in Zorba the Greek the story of an earthy Greek peasant he helped produce (and a role to which he returned a quarter-century later on Broadway). He again played a robust Greek character in A Dream of Kings (1969), a low-key drama set in Chicago's Greek community. In 1965 he divorced Katherine DeMille, by whom he'd had three children. The 1970s saw the beginning of a decline for Quinn, who increasingly took roles in poor American-made pictures and poorer foreign ones. Moreover, his burgeoning tendency to overact was not curbed by most of his directors. He has remained a compelling on-screen figure, however, even in his latter-day films. OTHER FILMS INCLUDE: 1960: Heller in Pink Tights 1961: The Guns of Navarone 1962: Barabbas (in the title role); 1964: Behold a Pale Horse 1965: A High Wind in Jamaica, Marco the Magnificent 1966: Lost Command 1967: The 25th Hour, The Happening 1968: Guns for San Sebastian, The Shoes of the Fisherman (in the last-named as a Russian-born Pope); 1969: The Secret of Santa Vittoria 1970: Flap, R.P.M., A Walk in the Spring Rain 1971: Arruza 1972: Across 110th Street 1973: Deaf Smith and Johnny Ears, The Don Is Dead 1974: The Destructors 1977: Mohammad, Messenger of God 1978: Caravans, The Children of Sanchez, The Greek Tycoon (in the latter as an Onassistype billionaire); 1979: The Passage 1981: Lion of the Desert, The Salamander 1982: Valentino/1919 1985: Ingrid 1988: "Onassis: The Richest Man in the World" (miniseries); 1989: Stradivari 1990: Revenge, Ghosts Can't Do It (opposite Bo Derek, a career low point); 1991: A Star for Two (opposite Lauren Bacall), Mobsters, Jungle Fever, Only the Lonely (wooing Maureen O'Hara); 1993: Last Action Hero 1994: This Can't Be Love (telefilm, opposite Katharine Hepburn). Various: Born Anthony Rudolfo Oxaca Quinn on April 21, 1915, Chihuahua, Mexico The imdb reports his height at 6' 0". But, and as much as I hate to admit people being much taller than me, that can't be right. He was gigantic. Like 6'3" at least. Spouses: Trivial: Father of Francesco Quinn, Valentina Quinn and Lorenzo Quinn. Has fathered 13 children. His companion Kathy Benvin was his secretary and he fathered her two young children: Antonia (b.1994) and Ryan (b.1996). Anthony had a heart bypass operation in 1990. Became a naturalized US citizen in the 1940s. For Magus, The (1968) he had to shave his hair. He had an insurance policy against the risk that it might not grow back! Personal quotes "In Europe an actor is an artist. In Hollywood, if he isn't working, he's a bum."
Actor - filmography Producer - filmography Miscellaneous crew - filmography Director - filmography Notable TV guest appearances
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Quinn
died of respiratory failure Sunday morning at a Boston hospital,
said Providence Mayor Vincent "Buddy'' Cianci, a friend of the actor.
Quinn lived in nearby Bristol.
In
1978, he played a character closely resembling the late shipping
magnate Aristotle Onassis in "The Greek Tycoon.''
