Anthony Quinn

Anthony Quinn

Anthony Quinn (born 1915) aspired to be an architect and later a merchant seaman before a detour through Hollywood brought him movie stardom. He appeared in over 100 motion pictures and won two Academy Awards.

Star of stage and screen, Anthony Quinn, made his first movie in 1936. By 1999, he had 148 movies to his credit. For years he played small parts in Hollywood, locked into stereotyped roles as convicts and gangsters. In 1947, a brief appearance on Broadway led to a major stage role with a minor touring company. By 1952, he had secured the role that would win for him an Academy Award, as Eufemio Zapata in the film Viva Zapata! With an Oscar to his credit Quinn caught the attention of the international film industry. By the mid-1950s he was a favorite of Italian filmmakers, from Dino De Laurentis to Federico Fellini. In 1964, he won more fans as the aging Alexis Zorba in the movie version of the hit musical, Zorba the Greek. Quinn proved himself further as a talented painter and sculptor. A showing of his artwork brought in two million dollars in 1982.

War Child

Anthony Quinn was born Antonio Rudolph Oaxaca Quinn, the son of freedom fighters in the Mexican revolution. Quinn's father, Francesco Quinn, was the son of an Irish railroad worker, raised in Mexico after the death of his own father. Her family abandoned Quinn's mother, Manuela Oaxaca, almost at birth. She and Francesco Quinn met in Chihuahua, Mexico and married soon afterward, on board a train filled with rebel troops bound for Durango. Quinn was conceived virtually in the field of battle. When the sergeant learned of Oaxaca's pregnancy, he shipped her by train back to Chihuahua where she gave birth to Quinn on April 21, 1915. Quinn's father returned from the war and rejoined his family in El Paso, Texas when Quinn was approximately two years old. His paternal grandmother, Dona Sabina, lived with the family in a small tin-roofed hut. She and her grandson developed a close bond. Within a year of his father's homecoming, Quinn's younger sister, Stella, was born.

Quinn's parents worked together building the railroads in Texas, until his father was injured and could no longer continue the work. He moved his family to San Jose, California, to work in the fields as migrant farm hands. For several years the Quinns lived as nomads, traveling throughout California in search of farm work. The family eventually settled in the southern part of the state to work in the citrus fields.

Quinn's father moved his family to East Los Angeles, where he found work at the Lincoln Park Zoo and later as a laborer at the new movie studios. On January 10, 1926, when Quinn was 10 years old, a car accident took his father's life. He went to work as a water boy on a construction crew on the Los Angeles River, and accepted other odd jobs in an effort to help support his family. When his widowed mother became romantically involved with a man named Frank Bowles, Quinn became irate and moved out of her home. He brought his sister and grandmother along with him, and left high school to support them.

Architecture Led to Acting

Quinn was a talented artist and, prior to quitting high school, had entered an architectural drawing contest. He won the first prize, which included an appraisal of his work by the noted architect, Frank Lloyd Wright. Quinn's poor diction annoyed Wright who recommended tongue surgery to facilitate his speech. Ironically, Quinn's speech deteriorated further after the operation. He sought the assistance of a former actress, Katherine Hamil, to help him learn to speak clearly, in the hopes of earning an apprenticeship with Wright. Hamil's students, for the most part, aspired to acting. They performed plays, and Quinn participated in those productions on several occasions. He joined an acting troupe called the Gateway Players, and was offered a role in a Mae West stage production. He made his professional debut in a play called Clean Beds, and later accepted a minor part as a prison inmate in a film called Parole!

Quinn stood six-feet-two and weighed 182 pounds— an impressive stance for a would-be actor. Yet his career was slow to unfold. He became discouraged and drifted across the American Southwest for a time. In 1936, he joined a fishing junket bound for the Orient out of Ensenada in Baja, California, but detoured back to Hollywood shortly before departure, in response to an advertised casting call for a Hollywood film. The movie was called The Plainsman and starred Gary Cooper under the direction of Cecil B. De Mille. To achieve realism, De Mille sought a Native American actor to play the part of a Cheyenne warrior. Quinn represented himself as a full-blooded Cheyenne and feigned an inability to speak English in an effort to secure the role. His initial performance displeased De Mille who would have replaced the aspiring actor had it not been for Cooper's remark, "He seems like a nice kid, give him a break," according to Quinn's memoir. De Mille allowed Quinn to play the part, which led to a long-term contract with Paramount Studios.