Anthony Quinn


Manuel Antonio Rodolfo Quinn Oaxaca, known as Anthony Quinn, was a Mexican and American actor. He was known for his portrayal of earthy, passionate characters "marked by a brutal and elemental virility" in over 100 film, television and stage roles between 1936 and 2002. He was a two-time Academy Award winner, and was also nominated for five Golden Globe Awards, two BAFTA Awards and a Tony Award.
Quinn was born in Chihuahua City, Mexico, and was raised in El Paso, Texas and East Los Angeles. After stints as a boxer and an architect, he made his film debut in the Cecil B. DeMille Western The Plainsman in 1936. Initially typecast as a "heavy" and playing other minor parts as well, he was gradually cast in more substantial parts, including co-starring roles in Blood and Sand and The Ox-Bow Incident. He won his first Oscar, for Best Supporting Actor, for his portrayal of Eufemio Zapata in Viva Zapata!, becoming the first Mexican-born performer to win an Academy Award. He received his second Oscar in 1957 for Lust for Life.
He would be nominated for Best Actor twice more, for his roles in Wild is the Wind and Zorba the Greek. His other notable films included La Strada, The Guns of Navarone, Requiem for a Heavyweight, Lawrence of Arabia, Guns for San Sebastian, The Shoes of the Fisherman, Across 110th Street, The Message, Lion of the Desert, Jungle Fever and Seven Servants. He also starred in the Broadway plays A Streetcar Named Desire, Becket, and Zorba.
Aside from his acting career, Quinn was also a civil rights activist, an avid painter, and the author of several autobiographical books. In 1987, he was presented with the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Lifetime Achievement Award. Through both his artistic endeavors and activism, he is considered a seminal figure of Latin-American representation in the media of the United States.

Early life and education

1915–1936: Childhood, studies and early acting

Manuel Antonio Rodolfo Quinn Oaxaca was born April 21, 1915, in Chihuahua, Mexico, during the Mexican Revolution to Manuela "Nellie" and Francisco "Frank" Quinn. Frank Quinn was born to an Irish immigrant father from County Cork and a Mexican mother. Frank reportedly rode with Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa, then later moved to the East Los Angeles neighborhood of City Terrace and became an assistant cameraman at a movie studio. In Quinn's autobiography, The Original Sin: A Self-portrait by Anthony Quinn, he denied being the son of an "Irish adventurer" and attributed that tale to Hollywood publicists. Quinn later said he was not accepted in Mexico because of his surname.
When he was six years old, Quinn attended a Catholic church and even contemplated becoming a priest, but at the age of 11, he joined the Pentecostals at the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel, which was founded and led by the evangelical preacher Aimee Semple McPherson. For a time, Quinn played in the church's band and was an apprentice preacher with the evangelist. "I have known most of the great actresses of my time, and not one of them could touch her," Quinn once said of the spellbinding McPherson, whom he credited with inspiring Zorba's gesture of the dramatically outstretched hand.
Quinn grew up first in El Paso, Texas, and later in East Los Angeles and in the Echo Park area of Los Angeles, California. He attended Hammel Street Elementary School, Belvedere Junior High School, Polytechnic High School, and Belmont High School in Los Angeles, with future baseball player and General Hospital star John Beradino, but left before graduating. In June 1987, Tucson High School in Arizona awarded him an honorary high-school diploma.
As a young man, Quinn boxed professionally to earn money, then studied art and architecture under Frank Lloyd Wright at the designer's Arizona residence and his Wisconsin studio, Taliesin. The two men became friends. When Quinn mentioned that he wanted to be an actor, Wright encouraged him. Quinn said he had been offered $800 per week by a film studio and did not know what to do. Wright replied, "Take it, you'll never make that much with me." During a 1999 interview on Private Screenings with Robert Osborne, Quinn said the contract was for only $300 per week.

Career

1936–1952: Beginnings in cinema

After a short time performing on the stage, Quinn launched his film career performing character roles in the 1936 films The Plainsman, Parole, and The Milky Way, his first motion picture, although he was not credited. He played "ethnic" villains in Paramount films such as Dangerous to Know with Anna May Wong and Road to Morocco with Bing Crosby and Bob Hope, and played a more sympathetic Crazy Horse in They Died with Their Boots On with Errol Flynn.
File:Maureen O'Hara Anthony Quinn.jpg|thumb|Quinn with Maureen O'Hara, behind the scenes of Sinbad the Sailor
A breakthrough in his career occurred in 1941, when he received an offer to play a matador in the bullfighting-themed Blood and Sand with Tyrone Power and Rita Hayworth. In 1942, Quinn co-starred alongside Power in another critical and financial success, the swashbuckling adventure The Black Swan. In 1943, he had a role in the Oscar-nominated Western The Ox-Bow Incident. He co-starred in Sinbad the Sailor with Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. and Maureen O'Hara.
By 1947, Quinn had appeared in more than 50 films and had played a variety of characters, including Indians, Mafia dons, Hawaiian chiefs, Filipino freedom fighters, Chinese guerrillas, and Arab sheiks. He returned to the theater, replacing Marlon Brando as Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire on Broadway. In 1947, he became a naturalized citizen of the United States.
He returned to Hollywood in the early 1950s, and was cast in a series of B-adventures such as Mask of the Avenger. He solidified his position as one of Hollywood's premier actors in Elia Kazan's Viva Zapata!, opposite Marlon Brando. Quinn's performance as Zapata's brother won him an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor while Brando lost the Oscar for Best Actor to Gary Cooper in High Noon. Quinn holds the distinction of being the first Mexican-American to win an Academy Award.

1953–1959: International films and career success

In the late 1950s, Quinn traveled to Rome, where he collaborated with several renowned Italian filmmakers and established himself as a star of world cinema. He worked with Dino De Laurentiis and Carlo Ponti in the Kirk Douglas film Ulysses, and starred as Attila the Hun, with Sophia Loren, in Attila. In 1953, he turned in one of his best performances as a dim-witted, thuggish, and volatile strongman in Federico Fellini's Oscar-winning La Strada, opposite Giulietta Masina.
Quinn won his second Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of painter Paul Gauguin in Vincente Minnelli's Lust for Life, alongside Kirk Douglas, who portrayed Vincent van Gogh. Quinn also starred as Quasimodo in the French-language film The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Even after his return to the United States, Quinn continued to appear periodically in European films. His frequent portrayal of Italian characters and appearance in Italian films led to the popular misconception that he was, in fact, Italian.

1959–1969: Return to Hollywood and Broadway

The following year, he received an Oscar nomination for Best Actor for his part in George Cukor's Wild Is the Wind. Quinn starred in the film The Savage Innocents as Inuk, an Eskimo who finds himself caught between two clashing cultures. He teamed with Kirk Douglas once again in the Western Last Train from Gun Hill.
He appeared on Broadway to great acclaim in Becket, as King Henry II to Laurence Olivier's Thomas Becket in 1960. Quinn's performance earned him a Tony Award nomination for best leading actor and Becket received the award for best play. An erroneous story arose in later years that during the run, Quinn and Olivier switched roles and Quinn played Becket to Olivier's King. In fact, Quinn left the production for a film, never having played Becket, and director Peter Glenville suggested a road tour with Olivier as Henry. Olivier happily agreed and Arthur Kennedy took on the role of Becket for the tour and brief return to Broadway.
File:Lawrence-of-Arabia-3.png|alt=Lawrence-of-Arabia-3|thumb|230px|left|Quinn and Omar Sharif in Lawrence of Arabia
As the decade ended, Quinn allowed his age to show and began his transformation into a major character actor. His physique filled out, his hair grayed, and his once smooth, swarthy face weathered and became more rugged. He played a Greek resistance fighter in The Guns of Navarone, an aging boxer in Requiem for a Heavyweight, and the Bedouin shaikh Auda abu Tayi in Lawrence of Arabia. Lawrence of Arabia would go on to win the Oscar and Golden Globe for best picture, and Quinn received a Golden Globe nomination for best actor alongside co-star Peter O'Toole. He also played the title role in the 1961 film Barabbas, based on a novel by Pär Lagerkvist. In 1962, he returned to Broadway, playing the role of Caesario Grimaldi in the Tony Award-nominated Tchin-Tchin, and had the lead role in the film Requiem for a Heavyweight.
The success of Zorba the Greek in 1964 resulted in another Oscar nomination for Best Actor. Other films included The 25th Hour, The Magus, Guns for San Sebastian, and The Shoes of the Fisherman. In 1969, he starred in The Secret of Santa Vittoria with Anna Magnani; each was nominated for a Golden Globe Award.