Manuel Antonio Rodolfo Quinn Oaxaca (April 21, 1915 – June 3, 2001), more commonly known as Anthony Quinn, was a Mexican-American actor who appeared in more than 200 films over a 65-year career.
In 1936, he made the leap into the acting profession. That year he had a role in the play Clean Beds with Mae West and made his screen debut in the crime drama Parole!. This quickly opened the door to other film roles, which often typecast him as a bad guy.
Some of Quinn's finest film work came in the 1950s and '60s. He played Eufemio Zapata, the brother of Mexican Revolution leader Emiliano Zapata, in Viva Zapata! (1952), a performance which earned him the Academy Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role, making him the first Mexican American to win any Academy Award. He received the same honor again in 1956, for his portrayal of the painter Paul Gauguin in Lust for Life with Kirk Douglas. He was also nominated for Best Actor in 1957 for Wild Is the Wind and in 1964 for Zorba the Greek, and played Quasimodo in the 1956 version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Quinn achieved box-office success with starring roles in The Guns of Navarone (1961) and Lawrence of Arabia (1962).
In his later years, he took on fewer acting roles and pursued his interest in art by painting, sculpting, and designing jewelry. Married three times, Quinn is said to have fathered 13 children. He died of respiratory failure on June 3, 2001, in Boston, Massachusetts.
Partial filmography:
- Daughter of Shanghai (1937) as Harry
- Union Pacific (1939) as Jack Cordray
- The Ghost Breakers (1940) as Ramon Mederos / Francisco Mederos
- Road to Singapore (1940) as Caesar
- They Died with Their Boots On (1941) as Crazy Horse
- Road to Morocco (1942) as Mullay Kasim
- The Ox-Bow Incident (1943) as Juan Martinez
- Sinbad the Sailor (1947) as Emir
- Against All Flags (1952) as Capt. Roc Brasiliano
- Viva Zapata! (1952) as Eufemio Zapata
- La Strada (1954) as Zampanò
- The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1956) as Quasimodo
- Last Train from Gun Hill (1959) as Craig Belden
- Warlock (1959) as Tom Morgan
- Heller in Pink Tights (1960) as Thomas Healy
- The Guns of Navarone (1961) as Col. Andrea Stavrou
- Barabbas (1961) as Barabbas
- Requiem for a Heavyweight (1962) as Louis 'Mountain' Rivera
- Lawrence of Arabia (1962) as Auda Abu Tayi
- Zorba the Greek (1964) as Alexis Zorba
- The Secret of Santa Vittoria (1969) as Italo Bombolini
- R. P. M. (1970) as Paco Perez
- Mohammad, Messenger of God (1976) as Hamza
- Jesus of Nazareth (1977) as Caiaphas
- The Passage (1979) as The Basque
- Lion of the Desert (1981) as Omar Mukhtar
- Ghosts Can't Do It (1989) as Scott
- The Old Man and the Sea (1990) as Santiago
- Jungle Fever (1991) as Lou Carbone
- Only the Lonely (1991) as Nick Acropolis
- Mobsters (1991) as Joe Masseria
- Last Action Hero (1993) as Tony Vivaldi
- Hercules: The Legendary Journeys (1994) as Zeus
Tropes:
- Fake Nationality: Many of his roles fell into this category, to the degree that many people didn't even realize he was Mexican. He played so many different nationalities and ethnicities that he was once called "the One-Man UN".
- His arguably most famous roles included multiple Fake Greeks (Zorba the Greek, The Guns of Navarone), several Fake Arabs (Lawrence of Arabia, Mohammad, Messenger of God), some Fake Frenchmen (The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, Lust for Life), and innumerable Fake Italians.
- His popularity in Italy and high-profile career there starting with Federico Fellini's La Strada meant that many Italian moviegoers thought he was Italian or Italian-American for many years.
- The oddest one may have been as a member of an Inuit tribe in Nicholas Ray's The Savage Innocents in 1960. It's the likely inspiration for Bob Dylan's song "The Mighty Quinn (Quinn the Eskimo)".
- He Also Did: Was an accomplished painter, recorded a spoken-word album, and wrote several books.
- Plays Great Ethnics: He played characters of a wide variety of ethnicities throughout his career. It went to the point that he was attributed the phrase "I never get the girl. I always get the country."
