Quinn, Anthony (1915-2001), was a Mexican American motion-picture actor known for his earthy, masculine performances. Quinn won Academy Awards as best supporting actor in 1952 for Viva Zapata (1952) and in 1956 for Lust for Life, in which he played French painter Paul Gauguin . Quinn also starred in the classic Italian film La Strada (1954). He is perhaps best known for his performance as the exuberant, life-loving title character in Zorba the Greek (1964).
Quinn was born on April 21, 1915, in Chihuahua, Mexico. His full name was Anthony Rudolph Oaxaca Quinn. He moved as a child with his family to Texas. He made his motion-picture debut in Parole (1936) and played numerous supporting roles through the 1940’s, often as a foreign villain or an American Indian. Quinn’s reputation as a serious actor received a boost in 1950 after he appeared on Broadway as Stanley Kowalski in Tennessee Williams’s drama A Streetcar Named Desire.
Quinn became a star after making Viva Zapata. His other major films include The Ox-Bow Incident (1943), Wild Is the Wind (1957), The Guns of Navarone (1961), Lawrence of Arabia and Requiem for a Heavyweight (both 1962), The Shoes of the Fisherman (1968), The Don Is Dead (1975), and Caravans (1978). Quinn dropped out of moviemaking during the 1980’s but returned in the 1990’s in such films as Jungle Fever (1991) and The Last Action Hero (1993). He also starred in several films made for television. Quinn wrote two autobiographies, The Original Sin: A Self Portrait (1972) and One Man Tango (1995). Quinn was also a painter. He died on June 3, 2001.
