ANTHONY QUINN BIOGRAPHY

Born Anthony Rudolfo Oxaca Quinn in Chihuahua, Mexico, on April 21, 1915, Quinn was the son of a half-Irish father and Mexican-Indian mother, raised in poverty as his family made the trek into America and eventually into the barrio of East Los Angeles.

By the time he turned 18, Quinn had already worked as a butcher, taxi driver, slaughterhouse worker, street-corner preacher and welterweight boxer, making up to $10 per fight.

Eventually he made his way into acting, appearing in a string of films for Paramount Pictures, including 1936's The Plainsman, directed by Cecil B. DeMille. A year later, the legendary filmmaker became Quinn's father-in-law, when he married DeMille's adopted daughter, Katherine.

The couple divorced in 1965, after Quinn fathered two children with Italian costume designer Yolanda Addolari. They married soon after, and remained together for 31 years. But that marriage began crumbling in 1993, when Quinn fathered a daughter with his secretary, Kathy Benvin. They didn't separate until 1995, and a bitter, public divorce officially ended things in 1997.

Quinn subsequently married Benvin. Later in life, Quinn's leading roles grew fewer, and the actor, frustrated that he had been typecast in the U.S., left Hollywood to work in Italy. "What could I play here? They only think of me as a Mexican, an Indian or a Mafia don," he told the Associated Press in 1977.

But he continued to appear in American films, more recently including the Arnold Schwarzenegger flick Last Action Hero, Spike Lee's Jungle Fever and A Walk In the Clouds with Keanu Reeves. Quinn’s signature role was as Zorba in the hit musical ZORBA THE GREEK (1964) for which he was Oscar-nominated.

Quinn's other passion was for art and sculpture…he pursued his dreams of being an artist and sculptor, and he would often wander around Selznick Studios (where his father secured a job) and draw portraits of stars like Rudolph Valentino and Douglas Fairbanks. Quinn was a student and friend of Frank Lloyd Wright.

He had not only shown his work at international exhibitions, but he also amassed a substantial art collection, including an original Picasso, said to be worth millions.
As many films as he appeared in and careers he had, Quinn's personal life was equally busy:

The actor had 13 children (nine sons and four daughters), but Quinn said he ultimately was happy with the life he dreamed of as a boy. "I never satisfied that kid but I think he and I have made a deal now," he told the Associated Press in 1987. "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."

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ANOTHER BIOGRAPHY

Date of Birth
21 April 1915, Chihuahua, Mexico

Date of Death
3 June 2001, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. (pneumonia and respiratory
failure due to complications from throat cancer)

Birth Name
Antonio Rudolfo Oaxaca Quinn

Height
6' 2" (1.88 m)

Anthony Quinn was born Antonio Rudolfo Oaxaca Quinn on April 21, 1915 in Chihuahua, Mexico to an ethnic Irish Mexican father and an ethnic Mexican mother. After starting life in extremely modest circumstances in Mexico, his family moved to Los Angeles, California, where he grew up in the Boyle Heights and the Echo Park neighborhoods. In Los Angeles, he attended Polytechnic High School and later Belmont High, the latter of which he dropped out of. The young Quinn boxed (which stood him in good stead as a stage actor, when he played Stanley Kowalski to rave reviews in Chicago), then later studied architecture under Frank Lloyd Wright at the great architect's studio, Taliesin, in Arizona. Quinn was close to Wright, who encouraged him when Quinn decided to give acting a try. After a brief apprenticeship in theater, Quinn made his movie acting debut in 1936 in a variety of small roles in several films at Paramount, including playing a Native American in The Plainsman (1936), which was directed by the man who later became his father-in-law, Cecil B. DeMille.

As a contract player at Paramount, he mainly played villains and ethnic types, such as the Arab in the Crosby-Hope vehicle Road to Morocco (1942) (1942). As a Mexican national (he did not become naturalized until 1947), he was exempt from the draft: With many actors in the service fighting World War II, Quinn was able to move up into better supporting roles. He had married DeMille's daughter Katharine, which enabled him to move in the top circles of Hollywood society.

However, he was disenchanted with his career and did not renew his Paramount contract despite the advice of others, including his father-in-law (whom Quinn never felt accepted him due to his Mexican roots). Instead, he returned to the stage to hone his craft. His portrayal of Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) in Chicago and on Broadway (where he replaced the legendary Marlon Brando, who is forever associated with the role) made his reputation and boosted his film career when he returned to the movies.

Brando and Elia Kazan, who directed "Streetcar" on Broadway and on film, were critical to Quinn's future success. Kazan, knowing the two were potential rivals due to their acclaimed portrayals of Kowalski, cast Quinn as Brando's brother in his biographical film of Emiliano Zapata, Viva Zapata! (1952). Quinn won the Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for 1952, making him the first Mexican-American to win an Oscar. It was not to be his lone appearance in the winner's circle: he won his second Supporting Actor Oscar in 1957 for his portrayal of Paul Gauguin in Vincente Minnelli' s autobiographical film of Vincent van Gogh , Lust for Life (1956), opposite Kirk Douglas.

Over the next decade, Quinn lived in Italy and became a major figure in world cinema, as many studios shot films in Italy to take advantage of the lower costs (not the first example of "runaway production" that had buffeted the industry since its beginnings in the Greater New York Metropolitan area in the 1910s). He appeared in several Italian films, giving one of his greatest performances as the circus strongman who brutalizes the sweet soul played by the Giulietta Masina in her husband, Federico Fellini's masterpiece Strada, La (1954).

Alternating between Europe and Hollywood, Quinn built his reputation and entered the front-rank of character actors and character leads. He received his third Oscar nomination (and first for Best Actor) for George Cukor's Wild Is the Wind (1957). He played a Greek resistance fighter in the huge hit The Guns of Navarone (1961) and kudos for his ex-boxer in the film version of Rod Serling's Requiem for a Heavyweight (1962). He went back to the ethnic drag parts, playing an Arab chieftain and warlord in David Lean's masterpiece Lawrence of Arabia (1962) and played the eponymous lead in the sword and sandals blockbuster Barabba (1961). Two years later, he reached the zenith of his career, playing Zorba the Greek in the 1964 film of the same name (a.k.a. Alexis Zorbas (1964)), which brought him his fourth, and last, Oscar nomination, as Best Actor. The 1960s were kind to him: he played character leads in such major films as The Shoes of the Fisherman (1968/II) and The Secret of Santa Vittoria (1969). However, his appearance in the title role of the 1969 film of John Fowles' The Magus (1968) did nothing to save the film, which was one of that decade's notorious turkeys.

In the 1960s, Quinn told Life Magazine that he would fight against typecasting. Unfortunately, the following decade saw him slip into replaying a type, (the exuberant ethnic based on his own Zorba the Greek in such cinematic trash as The Greek Tycoon (1978).

He starred as the Hispanic mayor of a southwestern city in in the short-lived 1971 TV series "The Man and the City" (1971), but his career lost its momentum during the decade. Aside from portraying a thinly veiled Aristotle Onnassis in the cinematic roman-a-clef "The Greek Tycoon", his other major roles of the decade was as Hamza in the controversial 1977 movie The Message (1976) (a.k.a. "Mohammad, Messenger of God", as the Italian patriarch in Eredità Ferramonti, L' (1976), as yet another Arab in Caravans (1978) and as a Mexican patriarch in The Children of Sanchez (1978). In 1983, he reprised his most famous role, Zorba the Greek, playing it on Broadway in the revival of the musical "Zorba" for 362 performances. Though his film career slowed during the 1990s, he continued to work steadily in films and television.

Quinn lived out the latter years of his life in Bristol, Rhode Island, where he operated a restaurant. He died in hospital in Boston from pneumonia and respiratory failure linked to his battle with throat cancer. He was 86 years old.
IMDb Mini Biography By: Jon C, Hopwood


Spouse

Kathy Benvin(7 December 1997 - 3 June 2001) (his death) 2 children
Jolanda Addolori(2 January 1966 - 19 August 1997) (divorced) 3 children
Katherine DeMille(3 October 1937 - 21 January 1965) (divorced) 5 children

Trivia

Appeared in more movies with other Oscar-winning actors (for acting) than any other Oscar-winning actor. 46; 28 male actors, 18 female actors.
Father of Francesco Quinn, Valentina Quinn, Lorenzo Quinn, Alex A. Quinn, Danny 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)
Became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1947, just before he was "gray-listed" for his association with Communists such as screenwriter John Howard Lawson and what were termed "fellow travelers", though he himself was never called before the House Un-American Activities Committee. When warned of his gray-listing by 20th Century-Fox boss Darryl F. Zanuck (a liberal), Quinn decided to go on the Broadway stage where there was no blacklist rather than go through the process of refuting the suspicions.
For The Magus (1968) he had to shave his hair. He had an insurance policy against the risk that it might not grow back!
Lived in Bristol, RI, and befriended Providence's controversial mayor Buddy Cianci.
Before he launched his acting career Quinn worked odd jobs as a butcher, a boxer, street corner preacher and a slaughterhouse worker. He also won a scholarship to study architecture with Frank Lloyd Wright, with whom he developed a close relationship.
Three children with Jolanda Addolori: Francesco Quinn (actor), Lorenzo Quinn (painter, sculptor), and Danny Quinn (actor).
Won his second Oscar for a movie in which he only appeared onscreen for a total of 8 minutes.
Son with Katherine DeMille: Christopher (drowned in W.C. Fields' swimming pool at age 3).
Brother-in-law of screenwriter Martin Goldsmith.
Son of an Irish father and Mexican mother, he grew up in the barrio of East L.A. shining shoes and selling newspapers.
Sidelines: painting and sculpting.
Most of his 13 children were left out of his will for unknown reasons while the bulk of his estate went to his wife at the time of his death and their two young children.
Was scheduled to appear in the David Lean-directed "Nostromo" in 1991, but Lean died and the production came to a halt.
For extra cash he entered dance contest, from which he sold the statues.
Was nominated for Broadway's 1961 Tony Award as Best Actor (Dramatic) for "Becket."
Around 1972 he announced his desire to play "Henry Cristophe", the 19th-century Emperor of Haiti. Upon this announcement several prominent black actors, including Ossie Davis and Ellen Holly, stated that they were opposed to a "white man" playing "black". Davis stated, "My black children need black heroes on which to model their behavior. Henry Cristophe is an authentic black hero. Tony, for all my admiration of him as a talent, will do himself and my children a great disservice if he encourages them to believe that only a white man, and Tony is white to my children, is capable of playing a black hero.
Took acting class from Michael Chekhov in Hollywood.
According to Joseph McBride's "Searching for John Ford" (St. Martin's Press, 2001 - ISBN 0312242328), director John Ford was urged to cast Richard Boone and Quinn as the Little Wolf and Dull Knife characters in Cheyenne Autumn (1964), as both had Native American blood. Ricardo Montalban and Gilbert Roland, who were of Mexican descent, were cast instead.
Played in the band of evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson as a youth and as a deputy preacher.
While many biographies have the young Quinn, who was the son of an Irish father and Mexican mother, growing up on the streets of East L.A., the truth was that he grew up in Echo Park, attending Polytechnic (which at the time was located in downtown L.A. before it moved to North Hollywood) and Belmont high schools. In later years he would recount how, while growing up in Echo Park, young Chicano toughs would come over to his house to enlist his help in brawling with the Irish gangs, and that later in the same day, young Irish bruisers would visit him to enlist his services in fighting the Mexicans. He would always beg off choosing sides by having his mother chase the young delinquents out of her house, after which he would resume one of his favorite pastimes, drafting and drawing.
He did not get along well with his first father-in-law, legendary producer-director Cecil B. DeMille, though they later developed a civil relationship.
Ex-father-in-law of Lauren Holly and Melissa Quinn.
He was one of the few actors to move easily and successfully between starring and supporting roles throughout his career. In both categories, the Irish-Mexican Quinn played a vast array of characters and ethnicities, including American, Arab, Basque, Chinese, English, French, Greek, Hawaiian, Hebrew, Hun, Irish, Italian, Mexican, Mongol, Native American, Filipino, Portuguese, Spaniard and Ukranian.
Donated blood to John Barrymore whenever the older actor needed a transfusion.
Underwent quadruple heart bypass surgery in February 1990.


Personal Quotes

In Europe an actor is an artist. In Hollywood, if he isn't working, he's a bum.
[when asked about his ethnicity] It doesn't make a difference as long as I'm a person in the world.
I never get the girl. I wind up with a country instead.
They said all I was good for was playing Indians.
[speaking in the 1980s] I don't see many men today. I see a lot of guys running around on television with small waists, but I don't see many men.
I never satisfied that kid [referring to himself], but I think he and I have made a deal now. 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.
I have lived in a flurry of images, but I will go out in a freeze frame.

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