Quinn, Anthony

QUINN, Anthony

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Nationality: American. Born: Anthony Rudolph Oaxaca Quinn in Chihuahua, Mexico, 21 April 1915 (some sources give 1916); became U.S. citizen, 1947. Education: Attended public school in Los Angeles, California. Family: Married 1) Katherine DeMille, 1937 (divorced 1965), sons: Christopher (deceased), Duncan, daughters: Christina, Kathleen, Valentina; 2) Iolanda Addolori, 1965 (separated 1995), sons: Francesco, Daniele, Lorenzo; child with Kathy Benvin. Career: Worked as cement mixer, ditchdigger, boxer, fruit picker, taxi driver; also with Federal Theater Project; 1936—stage debut in Clean Beds ; film debut in Parole ; then contract with Paramount, 1936–40; 1947—Broadway debut in The Gentleman from Athens ; 1958—directed the film The Buccaneer ; 1962—on stage in Tchin-Tchin ; 1971–72—in TV series The Man and the City ; 1977—in mini-series Jesus of Nazareth ; 1983—in musical version of the film, Zorba! on Broadway; 1988—in TV mini-series The Richest Man in the World: The Story of Aristotle Onassis. Awards: Best Supporting Actor Academy Award, for Viva Zapata!, 1952; Best Supporting Actor Academy Award, for Lust for Life, 1956. Agent: Johnnie Planco, William Morris Agency, 1350 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10019, U.S.A.

Films as Actor:

1936

Parole (Landers) (as Browning); Sworn Enemy (Marin) (as gangster); Night Waitress (Landers) (as hood); The Plainsman (Cecil B. DeMille) (as Cheyenne Indian); The Milky Way (McCarey) (as extra)

1937

Swing High, Swing Low (Leisen) (as the Don); Waikiki Wedding (Tuttle) (as Kimo); The Last Train from Madrid (Hogan) (as Capt. Ricardo Alvarez); Partners in Crime (Murphy) (as Nicholas Mazaney); Daughter of Shanghai (Florey) (as Harry Morgan)

1938

The Buccaneer (Cecil B. DeMille) (as Beluche); Dangerous to Know (Florey) (as Nicholas Keisnoff); Tip-Off Girls (Louis King) (as Marty); Hunted Men (Louis King) (as Legs); Bulldog Drummond in Africa (Louis King) (as Deane Fordline); King of Alcatraz (Florey) (as Lou Gadney)

1939

King of Chinatown (Grinde) (as Mike Gordon); Union Pacific (Cecil B. DeMille) (as Jack Cordray); Island of Lost Men (Neumann) (as Chang Tai); Television Spy (Dmytryk)(as Forbes)

1940

Emergency Squad (Dmytryk) (as Nick Buller); Road to Singapore (Schertzinger) (as Caesar); Parole Fixer (Florey)(as Francis Bradmore); The Ghost Breakers (George Mar-shall) (as Ramon); City for Conquest (Litvak) (as MurrayBruno); Texas Rangers Ride Again (Hogan) (as Joe Yuma)

1941

Blood and Sand (Mamoulian) (as Manolo de Palma); Knockout (Clemens) (as Trego); Thieves Fall Out (Wright) (as Chic Collins); They Died with Their Boots On (Walsh) (as Crazy Horse); The Perfect Snob (McCarey) (as AlexMorens); Bullets for O'Hara (William K. Howard) (as Tony Van Dyne)

1942

Larceny, Inc. (Lloyd Bacon) (as Leo Dexter); Road to Morocco (David Butler) (as Mullay Kasim); The Black Swan (Henry King) (as Wogan); The Ox-Bow Incident (Wellman) (as the Mexican)

1943

Guadalcanal Diary (Seiler)

1944

Buffalo Bill (Wellman) (as Yellow Hand); Roger Touhy, Gangster (The Last Gangster ) (Florey) (as George Car-roll); Ladies of Washington (Louis King) (as Michael Romanescue); Irish Eyes Are Smiling (Ratoff) (as Al Jackson)

1945

Where Do We Go from Here? (Ratoff) (as Indian Chief);China Sky (Enright) (as Chen Ta); Back to Bataan (Dmytryk)(as Capt. Andres Bonifacio)

1946

California (Farrow) (as Don Louis Rivera y Hernandez)

1947

Sinbad the Sailor (Wallace) (as Emir); The Imperfect Lady (Lewis Allen) (as Jose Martinez); Black Gold (Karlson) (as Charley Eagle); Tycoon (Wallace) (as Enrique Vargas)

1951

The Brave Bulls (Rossen) (as Raul Fuentes); Mask of the Avenger (Karlson) (as Giovanni Larocca); High Treason (Boulting)

1952

Viva Zapata! (Kazan) (title role); The Brigand (Karlson) (as Carlos Delargo); The World in His Arms (Walsh) (as Portugee); Against All Flags (Sherman) (as Roc Brasiliano)

1953

City beneath the Sea (Boetticher) (as Tony Bartlett); Seminole (Boetticher) (as Osceola); Ride Vaquero! (Farrow) (as José Esqueda); East of Sumatra (Boetticher) (as Kiang); Blowing Wild (Fregonese) (as Ward Conway); Cavalleria Rusticana (Fatal Desire ) (Gallone) (as Alfio); Donne Proibite (Angels of Darkness ; Forbidden Women ) (Amato) (as Francesco Caserto)

1954

Ulisse (Ulysses ) (Camerini) (as Antinous); La strada (Fellini)(as Zampano); The Long Wait (Saville) (as Johnny McBride);Attila flagello di dio (Attila ; Attila the Hun ) (Francisci)(title role)

1955

The Magnificent Matador (Boetticher) (as Luis Santos); The Naked Street (Shane) (as Phil Regal); Seven Cities of Gold (Webb) (as Capt. Gaspar de Portola)

1956

Lust for Life (Minnelli) (as Paul Gauguin); Man from Del Rio (Horner) (as Dave Robles); The Wild Party (Horner) (as Big Tom Kupfen); Notre Dame de Paris (The Hunchback of Notre Dame ) (Delannoy) (as Quasimodo)

1957

The River's Edge (Dwan) (as Ben Cameron); The Ride Back (Miner) (as Bob Kallen); Wild Is the Wind (Cukor) (as Gino)

1958

Hot Spell (Daniel Mann) (as Jack Duval)

1959

The Black Orchid (Ritt) (as Frank Valentine); Warlock (Dmytryk) (as Tom Morgan); Last Train from Gun Hill (John Sturges) (as Craig Beldon)

1960

Heller in Pink Tights (Cukor) (as Tom Healy); Portrait in Black (Gordon) (as Dr. David Rivera); The Savage Innocents (Ombre Bianche ) (Nicholas Ray) (as Inok)

1961

The Guns of Navarone (J. Lee Thompson) (as Col. Andrea Stavros)

1962

Barabbas (Fleischer) (title role); Requiem for a Heavyweight (Nelson) (as Mountain Rivera); Lawrence of Arabia (Lean)(as Auda Abu Tayi)

1964

Behold a Pale Horse (Zinnemann) (as Capt. Vinolas); Der Besuch (The Visit ) (Wicki) (as Serge Miller); Zorba the Greek (Cacoyannis) (title role)

1965

La Fabuleuse Aventure de Marco Polo (Marco the Magnificent ) (de la Patellière and Noel Howard) (as Kublai Khan);A High Wind in Jamaica (MacKendrick) (as Juan Chavez)

1966

Lost Command (Not for Honor and Glory ) (Robson) (as Lt.Col. Pierre Raspeguy)

1967

La 25e Heure (La Vingt-cinquième Heure ; The 25th Hour )(Verneuil) (as Johann Moritz); The Happening (Silverstein)(as Roc Delmonico); The Rover (L'Avventuriero ) (Terence Young) (as Peyrol)

1968

Guns for San Sebastian (Verneuil) (as Leon Alastray); The Shoes of the Fisherman (Anderson) (as Kiril Lakota); The Magus (Guy Green) (as Maurice Conchis)

1969

The Secret of Santa Vittoria (Kramer) (as Stalo Bambolini); A Dream of Kings (Daniel Mann) (as Matsverkas)

1970

A Walk in the Spring Rain (Guy Green) (as Will Cade); R.P.M. (Kramer) (as Paco); Flap (The Last Warrior ) (Reed) (as Flapping Eagle); King: A Filmed Record . . . Montgomery to Memphis (Lumet and Joseph L. Mankiewicz—doc)

1971

The City (Petrie—for TV) (as Thomas Jefferson Alcala);Arroza (Boetticher) (as narrator)

1972

Across 110th Street (Shear) (as Capt. Frank Mattelli, + exec pr); The Voice of La Raza (Greaves) (as narrator)

1973

Deaf Smith and Johnny Ears (Cavara) (as Erastus "Deaf"Smith); The Don Is Dead (Fleischer) (title role)

1974

The Marseilles Contract (The Destructors ) (Parris) (as Steve Ventura)

1976

L'eredità Ferramonti (The Inheritance ) (Bolognini) (as Gregorio Ferramonti); Bluff (High Rollers ); The Message (Mohammad, Messenger of God ) (Akkad) (as Hazma);Tigers Don't Cry (Collinson)

1978

The Greek Tycoon (J. Lee Thompson) (as Theo Tomasis);Caravans (Fargo) (as Zulfigar); The Children of Sanchez (Bartlett)

1979

The Passage (J. Lee Thompson) (as the Basque)

1981

High Risk (Raffill) (as Mariano); Lion of the Desert (Omar Mukhtar ) (Akkad—produced in in 1979) (as Omar Mukhtar);The Con Artists (Corbucci) (as Bang); The Salamander (Zinner) (as Bruno Manzini)

1982

Regina (Roma ) (Prate)

1983

Valentina (Betancor) (as Mosen Joaquin)

1984

Ingrid (Feldman); The Last Days of Pompeii (Hunt—for TV)

1986

Isola del tesoro (Dawson)

1989

A Man of Passion (Pasion de hombre ) (Loma); Actor (Angelucci)

1990

Ghosts Can't Do It (Derek); A Star for Two (Kaufman);Revenge (Tony Scott) (as Tiburon Mendez); The Old Man and the Sea (Storke—for TV) (as Santiago)

1991

Only the Lonely (Columbus) (as Nick); Jungle Fever (SpikeLee) (as Lou Carbone); Mobsters (Karbeinidoff) (as DonMasseria)

1993

Last Action Hero (McTiernan) (as Tony Vivaldi)

1994

Somebody to Love (Rockwell) (as Emilio); Hercules in the Underworld (Bill L. Norton—for TV) (as Zeus); Hercules in the Maze of the Minotaur (Bender—for TV) (as Zeus);Hercules and the Lost Kingdom (Cokliss—for TV) (as Zeus); Hercules and the Circle of Fire (Doug Lefler—for TV) (as Zeus); Hercules and the Amazon Women (Bill L.Norton—for TV) (as Zeus); This Can't Be Love (Harvey—for TV) (as Michael Reyman)

1995

A Walk in the Clouds (Arrau) (as Don Pedro Aragon)

1996

Il Sindaco (Ugo Fabrizio Giordani); Gotti (Harmon—for TV)(as Neil Dellacroce)

1999

Ringside (Norman Mailer); Camino Santiago (mini for TV);Oriundi (Bernstein) (as Giuseppe Padovani)

Film as Director:

1958

The Buccaneer

Publications

By QUINN: books—

The Original Sin, a Self-Portrait (autobiography), New York, 1972.

One Man Tango, with Daniel Paisner, New York, 1995.

By QUINN: articles—

"The Loving World of Anthony Quinn," interview with Mary Simons, in Look (New York), 1 April 1969.

"Competing with Myself," interview in Films and Filming (London), February 1970.

Interview by Veronica Webb, in Interview (New York), May 1991.

"The Number It Takes to Tango," interview with Alex Witchel, in New York Times, 6 July 1995.

On QUINN: books—

Marill, Alvin H., The Films of Anthony Quinn, Secaucus, New Jersey, 1975.

Ball, Gregor, Anthony Quinn: seine Filme, sein Leben, Munich, 1985.

Amdur, Melissa, Anthony Quinn, New York, 1993.

On QUINN: articles—

Current Biography 1957, New York, 1957.

Johnson, Ian, "Anthony Quinn," in Films and Filming (London), February 1962.

Marill, Alvin H., "Anthony Quinn," in Films in Review (New York), October 1968.

Denby, David, "High on Anthony Quinn," in Premiere (New York), September 1992.

Nielsen, Ray, "Anthony Quinn," in Classic Images (Muscatine), August 1993.

Williamson, K., "The Mighty Quinn," in Boxoffice (Chicago), January 1995.

* * *

Pounding on his beefy chest and rolling his exotic eyes, Anthony Quinn is easily disparaged as an all-purpose Ethnic, but his vibrant approach to acting can be riveting. In the 1990s, in smaller doses, as in the macho shenanigans of Last Action Hero, the formulaic but diverting comedy of Only the Lonely, and especially the swooning lyricism of A Walk in the Clouds, Quinn seems looser and less pointedly vociferous. Maybe time has purified him of some of that much talked-about Life Force, that so memorably defined the spirit of Zorba the Greek. That was before it degenerated into meaninglessness when applied across the board to all the international characterizations that nipped at Zorba's heels. In his post-1964 heyday, Quinn was as overexposed as the cast of television's Friends are today.

Born in poverty in Mexico, Anthony Quinn served a long contractual apprenticeship in the movies as lummox-in-loincloth or scourge-with-scimitar. If menace of a foreign extraction was required, casting agents made a beeline to Tony. But small monotonous parts were as galling to Quinn as being dismissed as Cecil B. DeMille's son-in-law. Graduating from leads in B movies, Quinn remained the same stone-faced heavy in A pictures; the performance in Viva Zapata! that won him his first Oscar hardly seemed more challenging than dozens of scenery-chewing turns that preceded it.

Instead of turning his frustration at being typecast inward, Quinn started thesping his heart out more and more; the Quinn style was born—earthy, hearty, and above all, voluble. You could outfight Quinn but never outshout him. Several savvy breaks from the Hollywood rut paid off by building (maybe overbuilding) Quinn's confidence. After donning the Brando T-shirt as a replacement Stanley Kowalski, he also shared glory with Olivier himself as they switched lead roles in Becket, and then his career rose phoenixlike out of a past-his-prime graveyard with Fellini's La strada. Taken seriously by Hollywood thanks to his art-house circuit success as the brutal strongman, Zampano, Quinn snagged a second supporting Oscar for Lust for Life and then began stamping all his roles with the same lust for overacting.

Whether certain directors could handle him with more authority or whether he simply responded to simpatico material, Quinn got delightfully high on his own ego-puffery in Cukor's colorful Heller in Pink Tights, presented a memorably noncondescending portrayal of an Eskimo in Ray's The Savage Innocents, then shadow-boxed beautifully with despair in Requiem for a Heavyweight, a much subtler and affecting portrait of brute force than his La strada stint. Throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, whether top-billed as he gave us Barabbas or cameoed in Lawrence of Arabia, Quinn broke no new ground until the soulmate role of Zorba the Greek liberated him. After 1964, however, Tony the Quinn became Zorba the Greek, and it is difficult to rebut the prevailing wisdom that dubbed him a one-man UN. He could play Italian, Native American, Greek, or Basque—just go round the globe; Quinn acted there. This was thesping by way of Berlitz. Still, if there were many occasions when you wished he had moved on from Esperanto-translated populism, there was no denying this peacock actor's energy. If every performer seeks to improve upon reality, then Quinn is the Great Embellisher. Refusing to play in sotto voce, the man is a one-tenor opera. The feverish, life-forced quality of his performances (good and bad) sing out with the overabundant grace notes of a man whose love of acting is boundless.

—Robert Pardi