Anthony Quinn

Anthony Quinn (Anthony Rudolph Oaxaca Quinn), 1915-2001, American actor, b. Chihuahua, Mex. His family moved to Los Angeles when he was four years old. Quinn had a number of jobs before turning to acting in the 1930s; his first movie role was in 1936. Of Mexican-Indian and Mexican-Irish parentage, he was tall, swarthy, and powerfully built, and early in his career played dozens of Native American and outlaw roles. Thereafter, he was cast as a rugged ethnic or exotic of varying backgrounds. An actor who seemed to personify the life force, he played a dissolute Mexican in Kazan 's Viva Zapata! (1952, Academy Award), an Italian strongman in Fellini 's La Strada (1954), an intense Gauguin in Lust for Life (1956, Academy Award), a battered prizefighter in Requiem for a Heavyweight (1962), the charismatic Zorba in Zorba the Greek (1964; he toured with the musical stage version, 1982-83), and an Aristotle Onassis -like figure in The Greek Tycoon (1978). He made more than 100 additional films and appeared in several plays and television dramas. He was also an accomplished visual artist.

Bibliography: See his autobiographies, The Original Sin (1972) and One Man Tango (1995); biography by M. Amdur (1993); study by A. H. Marill and A. Kennedy (1975).