His complex roots and mixed Latin/Anglo-Saxon blood will enable him to easily play personalities of almost all races and origins in the future. He is the Bedouin sheik of Lawrence of Arabia, Barabbas of Barabbas, and Zorba the Greek of Zorba.
Antonio Rodolfo Quinn Oaxaca, better known as Anthony Quinn (1915-2001), was a two-time Academy Award-winning Mexican-American actor, painter, and writer.
He is best known for his films Zorba the Greek, in which he starred, and Viva Zapata, for which he won an Oscar.
Additionally, Quinn won the Cecil B DeMille Award for lifetime achievement at the 1987 Golden Globe Awards.
Quinn was born in 1915 in Chihuahua, Mexico. After appearing on stage for a while in the USA, he stepped into the cinema with a role in the movie Parole (1936).
He played supporting roles for many years in films such as The Plainsman (1937) and Blood and Sand (1941), mostly portraying evil Native or Mexican characters.
He began appearing in leading roles after he won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for Turkish-born director Elia Kazan's 1952 Viva Zapata.
In 1954, he gave one of his most successful plays in Italy with his interpretation of Zampano in Federico Fellini's La Strada. In 1956, he won his second Oscar for best-supporting actor for his role as the painter Gauguin in Lust for Life.
He tried his hand at directing with Buccaneer (1958), which Cecil B. de Mille abandoned due to illness. This was his only directorial attempt.
Manuel Antonio Rodolfo Quinn Oaxaca (April 21, 1915 – June 3, 2001), better known by his stage name Anthony Quinn, was an American actor. Born in Mexico to a Mexican mother and a first-generation Irish-Mexican father, he was known for his portrayal of earthy, passionate characters "marked by a brutal and elemental virility" in numerous critically acclaimed films both in Hollywood and abroad. His notable films include La Strada (1954), The Guns of Navarone (1961), Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Guns for San Sebastian (1968), The Shoes of the Fisherman (1968), Across 110th Street (1972), The Message (1976), Lion of the Desert (1980), Jungle Fever (1991) and Seven Servants (1996). His starring performance in Zorba the Greek (1964) earned him a Oscar nomination for Best Actor.
His films in the 1960s, such as The Guns of Navarone (1961), Requiem for a Heavy-Eight (1962), Lawrence of Arabia (1962) and Zorba (1965), adapted from the work of Nikos Kazantzakis, attracted attention again. It was especially remembered with its sirtaki scene on the beach.
In the 1970s, he appeared on television in the leading role in the TV series The Man and the City. He played Hamza bin Abdulmuttalib, uncle of Muhammad, in the 1976 film The Message, and Ömer Muhtar in the 1981 film Lion of the Desert. These two films were directed by Syrian-born director Mustafa Akkad and had an important role in making Quinn known in Muslim countries and Turkey.
He performed with his sons and grandchildren in Stradivari (1988). In the 1990s, he played the role of Zeus in the series Hercules. He passed away in Boston in 2001. He was buried in the family cemetery near Bristol, Rhode Island, after a ceremony at the First Baptist Church, organized by the Foursquare Evangelical Christian Community, of which he was a member in the last years of his life.
Quinn, who has been married three times, has a total of 13 children from these marriages and extramarital affairs. One of his children, Francesco Quinn, became an actor like his father. He died of a heart attack in 2011, at the age of 48.
Snapshots from Anthony Quinn's life
* Anthony Quinn was born on April 21, 1915 in Chihuahua, Mexico. But his family settled in Los Angeles shortly after his birth. When Anthony Quinn was 9 years old, his father died.
* It is certain that he was born in the town of Chiuhaha in Mexico... His mother is Mexican and his father is Irish... However, there is conflicting information when it comes to professions. His mother is said to have been a "soldadera", a tough woman who fought alongside Pancho Villa. According to one rumor, his father was a cameraman, according to another, he was an adventurer who started working as a seasonal worker and later founded a zoo in the early days of Hollywood. His complex roots and mixed Latin/Anglo-Saxon blood will enable him to easily play personalities of almost all races and origins in the future.
* During the war years, he left Paramount and worked with Warner Bros and FOX. Their role is increasing in importance very slowly. Since the incredible dynamism hidden behind his hard, increasingly ugly physique is not yet known, directors do not consider him worthy of important roles. In films such as Blood and Sand, They Died with their Boots On, The Oxbow Incident, and Buffalo Bill, he is always the man or one of the men next to the main hero. He can bring the same credibility to the roles of the Native American chief Crazy Horse in Numbered Heroes or the Filipino warrior in Return to Bataan.
* Unable to find what he expected from the cinema, Quinn turns to Broadway, where he replaces Marlon Brando in the play "A Streetcar Named Desire" and achieves equal success. His luck seemed to have improved when he returned to Hollywood in 1951 after a three-year absence. He finds success in Robert Rossen's astonishing bullfighting movie The Brave Bulls. Immediately afterwards, he was chosen by Elia Kazan, who remembered his Mexican roots, to play Marlon Brando/Zapata's brother in Viva Zapata. Both actors are Oscar nominees and continue their rivalry on Broadway. He began appearing in leading roles after he won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for Elia Kazan's 1952 Viva Zapata.
* In a French production, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, the hunchback who falls in love with Esmeralda, played by Gina Lollobrigida, is Quasimodo. He returns to Hollywood and receives his second Oscar for Lust for Life. He is now a big star and an international star...
* He is the Bedouin sheik of Lawrence of Arabia, Barabbas of Barabbas, Zorba the Greek - Zorba the Greek saint of Zorba. In Cacoyannis's film, this famous Nikos Kazantzakis brings to his hero a great liveliness mixed with his love of life, Mediterranean philosophy, sirtaki steps, and passion for ouzo, and earns him his last Oscar nomination. This role is the pinnacle of his prudent, down-to-earth, yet dreamy and emotional landman identity. It is almost impossible to go any further now.
Quinn, who was married three times, has a total of 13 children from these marriages and extramarital affairs.
Marriages:
1st marriage: He married Katherine DeMille in 1937. They divorced in 1965. They had three girls and two boys.
2nd marriage: He married Jolanda Addolori in 1966. He divorced in 1997. They had three boys.
3rd marriage: He married Kathy Benvin in 1997. They had a girl and a boy.
Awards:
1952 - Academy Awards, Best Supporting Actor, Viva Zapata!
1956 - Academy Awards, Best Supporting Actor, Lust for Life
1987 - Golden Globe Awards, Cecil B. DeMille Award, Lifetime Achievement Award
Some of his movies:
1936 - The Milky Way
1937 - Daughter of Shanghai
1938 - The Buccaneer
1938 - Dangerous to Know
1940 - Road to Singapore
1940 - The Ghost Breakers
1940 - City for Conquest
1941 - Blood and Sand
1941 - They Died with Their Boots On
1942 - Larceny, Inc.
1942 - Road to Morocco
1942 - The Black Swan
1943 - The Ox-Bow Incident
1944 - Buffalo Bill
1945 - Where Do We Go from Here?
1945 - Back to Bataan
1947 - Sinbad the Sailor
1952 - Viva Zapata!
1952 - The World in His Arms
1952 - Against All Flags
1953 - Ride, Vaquero!
1954 - The Long Wait
1954 - La Strada
1954 - Attila
1955 - Ulysses
1956 - Lust for Life
1956 - The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Notre Dame de Paris)
1957 - The River's Edge
1957 - Wild Is the Wind
1958 - The Black Orchid
1958 - The Buccaneer (director only)
1959 - Warlock
1959 - Last Train from Gun Hill
1960 - The Savage Innocents
1960 - Portrait in Black
1961 - The Guns of Navarone
1961 - Barabbas
1962 - Requiem for a Heavyweight
1962 - Lawrence of Arabia
1964 - The Visit
1964 - Behold a Pale Horse
1964 - Zorba the Greek
1965 - A High Wind in Jamaica
1967 - The 25th Hour (La Vingt-cinquième Heure)
1967 - The Happening
1968 - The Shoes of the Fisherman
1968 - The Magus
1969 - The Secret of Santa Vittoria
1970 - Walk in the Spring Rain
1972 - Across 110th Street
1976 - The Message
1978 - The Greek Tycoon
1978 - Sanchez's Children
1981 - Lion of the Desert
1983 - Circle of Power (co-producer only)
1988 - Stradivari
1988 - Onassis: The Richest Man in the World (Aristotle Onassis)
1990 - Ghosts Can't Do It
1990 - Revenge
1991 - Only the Lonely
1991 - Jungle Fever
1991 - Mobsters
1993 - Last Action Hero
1994 - Hercules and the Amazon Women (TV)
1994 - Hercules and the Lost Kingdom (TV)
1994 - Hercules and the Circle of Fire (TV)
1994 - Hercules in the Underworld (TV)
1994 - Hercules in the Maze of the Minotaur (TV)
1995 - A Walk in the Clouds
1996 - Gotti (TV)
1996 - Seven Servants
1999 - Oriundi
2002 - Avenging Angelo