Anthony Quinn - Career

Career

After a short time performing on the stage, Quinn launched his film career performing character roles in the 1936 films Parole (his debut) and The Milky Way. He played "ethnic" villains in Paramount films such as Dangerous to Know (1938) and Road to Morocco, and played a more sympathetic Crazy Horse in They Died with Their Boots On with Errol Flynn. By 1947, he had appeared in over 50 films and had played Indians, Mafia dons, Hawaiian chiefs, Filipino freedom-fighters, Chinese guerrillas, and Arab sheiks, but was still not a major star. He returned to the theater, playing Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire on Broadway. In 1947, he became a naturalized citizen of the United States.

He came back to Hollywood in the early 1950s, specializing in tough roles. He was cast in a series of B-adventures such as Mask of the Avenger (1951). His big break came from playing opposite Marlon Brando in Elia Kazan's Viva Zapata! (1952). Quinn wanted to play the lead role of Zapata but Brando coming off his recent success in the film Streetcar Named Desire was Kazan's first choice. However his supporting role as Zapata's brother won Quinn an Oscar while Brando lost the Oscar for Best Actor to Gary Cooper in High Noon. He was the first Mexican-American to win any Academy Award. He appeared in several Italian films starting in 1953, turning in one of his best performances as a dim-witted, thuggish and volatile strongman in Federico Fellini's La strada (1954) opposite Giulietta Masina. Quinn won his second Oscar for Best Supporting Actor by portraying the painter Paul Gauguin in Vincente Minnelli's van Gogh biographical film, Lust for Life (1956). The award was remarkable as he was on screen for only 8 minutes. The following year, he received an Oscar nomination for his part in George Cukor's Wild Is the Wind. In The River's Edge (1957), he played the husband of the former girlfriend (played by Debra Paget) of a killer (Ray Milland), who turns up with a stolen fortune and forces Quinn and Paget at gunpoint to guide him safely to Mexico. Quinn starred in The Savage Innocents 1959 (film) as Inuk, an Eskimo who finds himself caught between two clashing cultures.

As the decade ended, Quinn allowed his age to show and began his transformation into a major character actor. His physique filled out, his hair grayed, and his once smooth, swarthy face weathered and became more rugged. He played a Greek resistance fighter in The Guns of Navarone (1961), an aging boxer in Requiem for a Heavyweight, and the Bedouin shaikh Auda abu Tayi in Lawrence of Arabia (both 1962). That year he also played the title role in Barabbas, based on a novel by Pär Lagerkvist. The success of Zorba the Greek in 1964 was the high water mark of his career and resulted in another Oscar nomination for Best Actor. Other films include The 25th Hour (1967), with Virna Lisi; The Magus (1968), with Michael Caine and Candice Bergen, and based on the novel by John Fowles; La Bataille de San Sebastian (Guns for San Sebastian) with Charles Bronson; and The Shoes of the Fisherman, where he played a Catholic Archbishop in a Soviet Ukrainian prison who becomes Pope. In 1969, he starred in The Secret of Santa Vittoria with Anna Magnani.

He appeared on Broadway to great acclaim in Becket, as King Henry II to Laurence Olivier's Thomas Becket in 1960. An erroneous story arose in later years that during the run, Quinn and Olivier switched roles and Quinn played Becket to Olivier's King. In fact, Quinn left the production for a film, never having played Becket, and director Peter Glenville suggested a road tour with Olivier as Henry. Olivier happily agreed and Arthur Kennedy took on the role of Becket for the tour and brief return to Broadway.

In 1971, after the success of a TV movie named The City, where Quinn played Mayor Thomas Jefferson Alcala, he starred in the single-season ABC television series entitled The Man and the City. Though the program was filmed in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the name of the city is not disclosed on the program. His subsequent television appearances were sporadic, among them Jesus of Nazareth.

In 1977, he starred in the movie Mohammad, Messenger of God (also known as The Message), about the origin of Islam, as Hamzah, a highly revered warrior instrumental in the early stages of Islam. In 1980, he starred in the Lion of the Desert, together with Irene Papas, Oliver Reed, Rod Steiger, and John Gielgud. Quinn played the real-life Bedouin leader Omar Mukhtar who fought Benito Mussolini's Italian troops in the deserts of Libya. The film, produced and directed by Moustapha Akkad, is now critically acclaimed, but performed poorly at the box office because of negative publicity in the West at the time of its release, stemming from its having been partially funded by Libya. In 1983, he reprised his most famous role, playing Zorba the Greek for 362 performances in a successful revival of the Kander and Ebb musical Zorba. Quinn performed in this musical both on Broadway in New York City and at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C,

Quinn's film career slowed during the 1990s, but he nonetheless continued to work steadily, appearing in Revenge (1990), Jungle Fever (1991), Last Action Hero (1993), A Walk in the Clouds (1995) and Seven Servants (1996). In 1994, he played Zeus in the five TV movies that led to the syndicated series Hercules: The Legendary Journeys. (However, he did not continue in the actual series, and the role was eventually filled by several other actors).

Quinn made an appearance at the John Gotti trial, according to John H. Davis, author of Mafia Dynasty: The Rise and Fall of the Gambino Crime Family. He told reporters he wanted to play Paul Castellano, the boss of the Gambino family after Carlo Gambino. Gotti had Castellano murdered, becoming the boss of the Gambino family thereafter. Gotti was on trial concerning a variety of felony charges when Quinn visited the court room. Although he tried to shake hands with Gotti, federal marshals prevented him from doing so, Davis says. The actor interpreted the testimony of Sammy ("The Bull") Gravano, Gotti's underboss, against Gotti as "a friend who betrays a friend." He hadn't come to "judge" Gotti, Quinn insisted, but because he wanted to portray Castellano, who inspired the actor because he had had a "thirty-year-old" mistress, which Quinn believed was "a beautiful thing." He would later portray Gambino family underboss Aniello Dellacroce in the 1996 HBO film Gotti. Armand Assante portrayed John Gotti and Richard C. Sarafian portrayed Paul Castellano. Quinn was nominated for a Golden Globe for his performance as Dellacroce.