Our Golden Age star for June was one of those once in a lifetime icons that Robert Osborne called the most animated stars he ever met and later became friends with. He met A.Q. in 1999 in the series produced by TCM called Private Screenings and as he walked in the room as the cameras began to roll with his wide smile, bursting exuberance, and wild vivacity he recounted stories about his life and the people he met and worked with. It gave Osborne a real sense of the actor’s true charisma and as he called it whiz-bang personality that helped emblazon Quinn’s stardom during his tenure on the Silver Screen. Osborne adding his own exclamation point nicknamed him Tony the Tornado.
Anthony Rodolfo Quinn Oaxaca was born in Chihuahua, Mexico to an immigrant father from Cork Ireland and mother a native of Mexico this extraordinary talent would become one of the most versatile actors Hollywood would ever produce. Shortly after his birth his family settled in Los Angeles it was there young Anthony attended Catholic School and as early as age 6 he considered the Priesthood but when he was 9 his father had died and Anthony had to grow up fast taking odd jobs to support his family. Maybe unknown to we readers that in High School he won an architecture competition and was mentored by Frank Lloyd Wright who urged Quinn to enroll in acting school with the intention to hone his speaking quality for what would be on his future horizon.
They year 1936 saw his opportunity arrive as he starred with Mae West in his first movie Clean Beds and then Parole. This film was pivotal because it typecast him as the ethnic guy with the bad attitude. In that same year he played a menacing Cheyenne Indian opposite Gary Cooper in The Plainsman and then a more sympathetic one as Crazy Horse in They Died With Their Boots On opposite Errol Flynn. By the year 1947 Anthony Quinn appeared as a Hawaiian Chief, Filipino freedom fighter, an Arab sheik, Chinese guerilla, Mafia don, and even more Indians but it was this great versatility that yielded A.Q. his 2 Oscar wins.
Some of his best work began in 1952 alongside Marlon Brando in Viva Zapata! For which he won best actor in a supporting role. He received that same award alongside Kirk Douglas in 1956’s Lust for Life and again that same year he won the Foreign Language Film Oscar in Fellini’s LaStrada. The Best Actor nod nomination for Wild is the Wind in 1957 and maybe his best known film Zorba the Greek in 1964 and he achieved boffo box office success with Gregory Peck and David Niven in The Guns of Navarone in 1961 and Lawrence of Arabia with Peter O’Toole in 1962. Quinn had been a professional boxer earlier in his life and that might have helped in when he played as has been pugilist opposite Jackie Gleason as his manager and Mickey Rooney in the highly acclaimed Requiem for a Heavyweight. Six years later he found himself playing the Pontiff in Shoes of the Fisherman opposite the legendary Laurence Olivier. As one might observe Anthony Quinn many times played secondary roles but at times outshined the headliner and broke the mold for other character actors that followed.
Quinn’s versatility extended to the stage as well. In 1947 he appeared in a Broadway production The Gentleman From Athens. He also took the replacement role of Stanley Kowalski, a Brando favorite in A Streetcar Named Desire and later in 1950 Borned in Texas, then Becket in 1960 and then Tony nominated for Tchin-Tchin in 1962.
Did you know that A.Q.’s first wife was the daughter of famed director Cecille B. DeMille? Or that when John Barrymore needed a blood transfusion Quinn was there for his old friend?
A.Q might have been known as Jack the Lad as well because he was married 3 times with multiple mistresses. He sired 13 children with his wives and mistresses and was accused of abuse by his second wife Yolanda that he disputed. He died of respiratory failure in Boston in 2001 he was
