Anthony quinn wife

Anthony Quinn's robust portrayals of such characters as Zorba the Greek and the fierce Bedouin leader in Lawrence of Arabia (1962) made him larger than life to millions. Appearing in more than two hundred films during a career that spanned six decades, his image was defined by his charismatic performance as the lusty peasant Alexis Zorba in Zorba the Greek (1964), a role that seemed to reflect the sum and substance of his off-screen persona as someone proud, virile and passionate.

Early on the Mexican Irish actor was typecast as a Native American, a Latin villain, a Mafia don, and a Mexican bandito in mostly B-movies, but he resisted characterization. His successful stage performance of Stanley Kowalski in Tenessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire led to more challenging roles, such as the hot-tempered brother of Mexican revolutionary leader Emiliano Zapata in Viva Zapata! (1952) and the artist Paul Gauguin in Lust for Life (1956), winning Academy Awards for both performances.

Quinn also resisted being categorized as an actor. He considered running for governor of California, but was discouraged by labor leader Cesar Chavez, who told him he was more valuable as an actor than in politics.

He dedicated much of his time later in life to honing his artistic abilities, becoming an accomplished painter and sculptor, and designing houses in Italy and California.

Escaped the Mexican Revolution

Anthony Rudolph Oaxaca Quinn was born in Chihuahua, Mexico to Francisco Quinn of Irish-Mexican descent and Manuella Oaxaca of Mexican and Cherokee ancestry. His father was fighting in the Mexican Revolution with Pancho Villa's forces at the time of his birth until the family fled to El Paso, Texas to escape federal troops. The family, which had grown with the birth of Quinn's sister Stella, eventually moved to California where they worked as farm laborers, earning ten cents an hour picking fruit. After settling in East Los Angeles when Quinn was six, Frank found work at the Lincoln Park Zoo and then as a laborer at the burgeoning film studios. He was killed in a car accident when Quinn was just nine.

His father's death forced Quinn to support his mother with odd jobs, including shining shoes, digging ditches, and driving a taxi. He also worked as a professional boxer, racking up sixteen consecutive victories until he was knocked out in his seventeenth fight and gave up the sport for good. After taking up the saxophone and forming a small orchestra, he joined a band with the Foursquare Gospel Church of the evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson and did some preaching in Los Angeles' Mexican neighborhoods. During this time, Quinn was teaching himself literature, music and painting, and taking courses in art and architecture. After winning an architectural drawing contest, he met Frank Lloyd Wright, who advised him to get medical help to improve his speech impediment. His speech actually deteriorated after the surgery, so he sought the help of former actress Katherine Hamil to improve his stammer though acting lessons.

At a Glance . . .

Born Antonio Rudolph Oaxaca Quinn on April 21, 1915, in Chihuahua, Mexico; died on June 3, 2001 in Boston; son of Francisco Quinn and Manuella Oaxaca; married Katherine De Mille (divorced 1965); married Iolanda Addolori (divorced 1997); married Kathy Benvin; children: Christopher (died 1941), Christina, Catalina, Duncan and Valentina by De Mille; Francesco, Daniele and Lorenzo by Addolori; Antonia and Ryan by Benvin; Alex and Sean by an unnamed German woman; and an unnamed son by an unnamed French woman.

Career: Actor. Made more than 200 films during a career that spanned 60 years. Other major film credits include The Guns of Navarone (1961), La Strada (1954), Wild Is the Wind (1957), Hunchback of Notre Dame (1956), The Last Train From Gun Hill (1959) and Requiem for a Heavyweight (1962).

Awards: Best Supporting Actor, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, 1953, 1957; Best Actor, National Board of Review, 1964; Cecil B. DeMille Award, Golden Globes, 1987; Golden Camera Award, 1995.

Debuted on Stage and Screen

In 1936 Quinn debuted on stage in Mae West's play Clean Beds, playing a role originally written for John Barrymore. The legendary actor made a surprise appearance on opening night, complimenting twenty-one-year-old Quinn on his performance. Over the years, Barrymore would become a friend and mentor. "Many people remember Jack Barrymore as either a wit or a drunk, but what impressed me was his courage of conviction," Quinn told the Los Angeles Times. "He used to tell me that you can only be as right as you dare to be wrong. That you must be willing to take chances to achieve superiority in your craft. He gave me his armor from 'Richard III.' He was like a retiring matador, who gives his sword to the most promising newcomer he knows."

That same year, Quinn signed on with Paramount and made his film debut as a convict in Parole!. This would lead to a string of movies in which he appeared in the "ethnic" roles, including the Cheyenne chief in Cecil B. DeMille's The Plainsman (1936), starring Gary Cooper. It wasn't long before Quinn married DeMille's daughter Katherine, whom he met during the filming. Their first son, Christopher, drowned in 1941 after falling into a fishpond on the estate of W.C. Fields. They would go on to have four more children: Christina, born in 1941; Catalina in 1942; Duncan in 1945; and Valentina in 1952.

Quinn appeared in a number of B-movies between 1936 and 1947, including: King of Alcatraz (1938), King of Chinatown, (1939) and Island of Lost Men (1939), but he felt constrained by Hollywood. "I was the bad guy's bad guy," he told the Guardian."Irarely made it to the final reel without being dispatched by a gun or knife or a length of twine, typically administered by a rival hood." He moved to New York City and made his debut on Broadway in 1947 in Gentleman From Athens, following it with a successful two-year run in Elia Kazan's production of A Streetcar Named Desire, replacing Marlon Brando, who had gone into films.

Part of the reason Quinn moved to New York in 1947 was due to the U.S. House Un-American Activities Committee investigating him along with other big names in Hollywood. Quinn was always a political man, sometimes taking stances considered radical at the time. He got involved in the 1942 "Sleepy Lagoon" trial, helping 22 Mexican youths from Los Angeles appeal a gang-related murder conviction. "Probably it's the Irish in me that makes me speak out," he told the Los Angeles Times. "But there are about 800 boys in my profession who have a political ideal and want to express it. How can an actor be real in his work if he hasn't some convictions regarding the problems in the world around him?"

Offered More Rewarding Roles

Quinn's multi-ethnic heritage had an acute effect on his sense of identity, which directly influenced his decision to become an actor and the various ethnic roles he played. "Those were rough times, right from the beginning," he said as he recalled his childhood in a 1981 interview with the Los Angeles Times. "With a name like Quinn, I wasn't totally accepted by the Mexican community in those days, and as a Mexican I wasn't accepted as an American. So as a kid I just decided, well, 'A plague on both your houses. I'll just become a world citizen.' So that's what I did. Acting is my nationality." Still, he was proud to portray Mexicans and Native American's in his films, seeing it as an opportunity to educate the audience. "I fought early to go beyond the stereotypes and demand Mexicans and Indians be treated with dignity in films."

After years of viewing his ethnicity as a disadvantage, Quinn began to realize its benefits. He returned to film in Robert Rosen's The Brave Bulls (1951). "The supporting cast was entirely Mexican, and I was thrilled to be in such company," he told the Guardian. "After so many years as the token Latin on the set, I found tremendous security in numbers. For the first time, I belonged." But it was his performance of the great Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata in Viva Zapata! (1952) that won him fame and his first Academy Award.

Quinn spent much of his time in Italy, where he worked with several acclaimed Italian filmmakers, including Dino De Laurentiis, Carlo Ponti, and Giuseppe Amato. It was his next film, Federico Fellini's La Strada (1954), in which he played dim-witted circus strongman Zampano, that forever changed his career and demonstrated his capacity to play a leading role. He won his second Oscar in 1955 for his portrayal of Paul Gauguin in Vincente Minnelli's Lust for Life and was nominated again for his performance in Wild is the Wind (1957), with Anna Magnani. He even tried his hand at directing, taking over for his father-in-law when DeMille became ill during the making of The Buccaneer (1958). However, under Quinn's direction, the film would become more of a pirate epic than the intimate, political drama it was intended to be. It would also be his last stab at filmmaking.

Quinn's acting career reached its peak in the early sixties when he appeared on Broadway as Henry II, starred opposite Lawrence Olivier in Jean Anouilh's Becket, and starred with Margaret Leighton in Francois Billetdoux's Tchin Tchin. He had simultaneous box-office success with the WWII drama The Guns of Navarone (1961), in which he played a Greek colonel, and with David Lean's WWII epic Lawrence of Arabia (1962). This was followed by another acclaimed performance, and one of his personal favorites, as an over-the-hill prizefighter in Requiem For a Heavyweight (1962).

He went on to play what became his signature role—the ouzo-drinking and bouzouki-dancing peasant in Michael Cacoyannis's Zorba the Greek (1964), for which he earned another Oscar nomination. He would reprise the role on Broadway nearly twenty years later in what would become one of the most lucrative revivals in history, grossing $48 million over four years. He never found a part of the same caliber despite a busy career that produced such films as A High Wind in Jamaica (1965) and The Secret of Santa Vittoria (1969).

Quinn and DeMille's marriage ended in 1965 after he conceived a child with Iolanda Addolori, a wardrobe assistant on the set of Barabbas (1962). The marriage had lasted nearly thirty years, but Quinn had never been a faithful husband. He admitted to affairs with some of Hollywood's most glamorous women, including Carole Lombard, Rita Hayworth, Ingrid Bergman, and Maureen O'Hara. He married Addolori in 1966 when she was pregnant with their third child.

Focused on Other Talents

His success in acting allowed Quinn to exploit his artistic talents later in life, when he concentrated on painting, sculpting, and designing jewelry. He was known for cubist and pot-impressionist oils, showing his work at major international exhibitions, although he admitted to "stealing" from the masters. In an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, he quoted Picasso: "A poor man borrows, a rich artist steals. I steal, of course." Nevertheless, he added, "I'm much more honest in my painting than I am as an actor. You can't do 240 films and do your best in each one." Quinn penned his memoirs, The Original Sin: A Self Portrait in 1972.

Quinn never stopped acting, but he slowed down quite a bit after 1975. "The parts dried up as I reached my sixtieth birthday, loosely coinciding with my growing disinclination to pursue them," he said to The Guardian. "Indeed, I could not see the point in playing old men on screen and I rejected the role for myself." However, he continued to make movies throughout the 1970s, appearing in such films as The Greek Tycoon (1978) and The Children of Sanchez (1978). Turning to television, he played Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis in the 1988 movie Onassis: The Richest Man in the World and the tireless fisherman in Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea (1990).

Quinn's second marriage lasted 31 years, but he was never a faithful husband. He had three children with two other women and carried on affairs with many more, including Ingrid Bergman's daughter Pia Lindstrom and the French actress Dominique Sanda. He and Addolori divorced in 1997 after he fathered two more children with his former secretary, Kathy Benvin, who was 50 years his junior. Their daughter, Antonia, was born in 1993 and a son, Ryan, was born in 1996.

Still active into his eighties, Quinn worked with Kevin Costner in Revenge (1990), director Spike Lee in Jungle Fever (1991) and Keanu Reeves in A Walk in the Clouds (1995). In 1995 he published One Man Tango, a second memoir in which he did some soul-searching and confessed to his womanizing ways. The title refers to a comment made by Orson Welles: "Tony, you're a one-man tango." He was working on the film Avenging Angelo with Sylvester Stallone at the time of his death from respiratory failure.

Selected works

Plays

Clean Beds.

A Streetcar Named Desire.

Gentlman from Athens.

Becket.

Tchin Tchin.

Films

Parole!, 1936.

The Plainsman, 1937.

King of Alcatraz, 1938.

King of Chinatown, 1939.

Islands of Lost Men, 1939.

The Brave Bulls, 1951.

Viva Zapata, 1952.

La Strada, 1954.

Lust for Life, 1956.

Wild Is the Wind, 1957.

(as director) The Buccaneer, 1958.

Guns of Navarone, 1961.

Becket, 1961.

Barabbas, 1962.

Requiem for a Heavyweight, 1962.

Lawrence of Arabia, 1962.

Zorba the Greek, 1964.

High Wind in Jamaica, (1965.

The Secret of Santa Vittoria, 1969.

Deaf Smith and Johnny Ears, 1973.

The Children of Sanchez, 1978.

The Greek Tycoon, 1978.

Revenge, 1990.

Jungle Fever, 1991.

A Walk in the Clouds, 1995.

Avenging Angelo, 2002.

Made-For-TV movies

Onassis: The Richest Man in the World. The Old Man and the Sea.

Books

The Original Sin: A Self Portrait, 1972.

(with Michael Paisner) One Man Tango, 1995.

Sources

Periodicals

The Guardian (London), June 5, 2001.

Independent (London), June 5, 2001. B2.

Los Angeles Times, June 4, 2001. A1.

San Francisco Chronicle, June 5, 2001. B2.

The Scotsman, June 5, 2001. P. 14.

The Washington Post, June 4, 2001. B6.

On-line

Contemporary Authors Online, Gale, 2002.

—Kelly M. Cross