Anthony Quinn
(April 21, 1915 -- June 3, 2001)
was a Mexican-American actor, as well as a painter and writer. He starred in numerous critically acclaimed and commercially successful films, including Zorba the Greek, Lawrence of Arabia, The Guns of Navarone, The Message , Lion of the Desert and Federico Fellini's La strada. He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor twice; for Viva Zapata! in 1952 and Lust for Life in 1956.
Quinn was born Antonio Rodolfo Quinn-Oaxaca in Chihuahua, Chihuahua, Mexico, during the Mexican Revolution. His mother, Manuela "Nellie" Oaxaca, was of Aztec Indian ancestry. His father, Francisco Quinn, an Irish Mexican, was also born in Mexico. Frank Quinn rode with Pancho Villa, then later moved to Los Angeles and became an assistant cameraman at a movie studio.
When he was six years old, Quinn attended a Catholic church (even thinking he wanted to become a priest). At age eleven, however, he joined the Pentecostals in the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel (the Pentecostal followers of Aimee Semple McPherson).
Quinn grew up first in El Paso, Texas, and later the Boyle Heights and the Echo Park areas of Los Angeles, California. He attended St. Hammel Elementary School, Belvedere Junior High School, Polytechnic High School and finally Belmont High School with future baseball player and General Hospital star, John Beradino, but left before graduating. Tucson High School in Arizona, many years later, awarded him an honorary high school diploma.
As a young man Quinn boxed professionally to earn money, then studied art and architecture under Frank Lloyd Wright, both at Wright's Arizona residence and his Wisconsin studio, Taliesin. The two very different men became friends. When Quinn mentioned he was drawn to acting, Wright encouraged him. Quinn said he had been offered $800 a week by a film studio and didn't know what to do. Wright replied, "Take it, you'll never make that much with me."
In a rerun of an interview done with Anthony Quinn in 1999 for Turner Classic Movies' "Private Screenings with Robert Osborne" (repeated 21 April 2009), Mr. Quinn said that the contract was for $300 a week.
Quinn's personal life was as volatile and passionate as the characters he played in films. His first wife was the adopted daughter of Cecil B. DeMille, the actress Katherine DeMille, whom he married in 1937. The couple had five children: Christopher (born 1939), Christina (born December 1, 1941), Catalina (born November 21, 1942), Duncan (born August 4, 1945), and Valentina (born December 26, 1952).[8] One of their sons, Christopher, age 2, drowned in the swimming pool of next-door neighbor W.C. Fields.Quinn and DeMille were divorced in 1965.
The following year, he married costume designer Iolanda Quinn (Jolanda Addolori). They had three children: Francesco (born March 22, 1962), Danny (born April 16, 1964), and Lorenzo (born May 7, 1966). The union ended in 1997, after Quinn fathered a child with his secretary, Kathy Benvin. He then married Benvin, with whom he had two children, Antonia (born July 23, 1993) and Ryan Nicholas (born July 5, 1996). Quinn and Benvin remained together until his death.
Quinn also fathered two other children with Friedel Dunbar: Sean Quinn (born February 7, 1973), a New Jersey real estate agent, and Alexander Anthony Quinn (born December 30, 1976), an event producer in Los Angeles, CA
Quinn spent his last years in Bristol, Rhode Island. He died aged 86 in Boston, Massachusetts from pneumonia and respiratory failure while suffering from throat cancer shortly after completing his role in his last film, Avenging Angelo (2002).
His funeral was held in the First Baptist Church in America in the College Hill section of Providence, Rhode Island; late in life, he had joined the Foursquare evangelical Christian community. He is buried in a family plot in Bristol, Rhode Island.
A True Don..................Dr.Love
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Anthony Quinn - My Forgotten Yearsby Touchwood873,243 views
What was the name of the movie where he enters a town and pretends to be a priest?
ptrck99 7 months ago