Anthony Quinn
(Pseudonym of Anthony Rudolf Oaxaca; Chihuahua, Mexico, 1915-Boston, 2001) American film actor.From an Irish father and a Mexican mother, from a very young age he lived in various places in California.He had to start work early, while attending class at Belvedere Junior High School.The need led him to learn all kinds of trades, which he carried out over several years (newsboy, waiter, truck driver, boxer).
Anthony Quinn
The theater interested him from a young age: he attended Katherine Hamil's school and at the age of twenty-one he made his debut at the Hollytown Theater in Los Angeles.However, various circumstances forced him to look to the cinema, a medium in which he began to appear in "extra" work in films such as The Milky Way , by Leo McCarey and Los vultures del presidio , by Louis Friedlander, both from 1936.
His physical conditions and features conditioned him to play very characteristic roles (buccaneer, sex symbol, gangster or soldier and, over time, representative of all kinds of peoples: Indian, mestizo, Eskimo, Arab and Russian) that allowed him, however, to achieve the security that every actor needs.
His first interventions slowly opened the door for him (always with small roles) in more renowned films directed by Mitchell Leisen ( It began in the tropics , 1937) and Cecil B.DeMille ( Buffalo Bill , 1936; Florida Corsairs , 1937; Unión Pacífico , 1939), in which he knew how to show that he could play roles with more text.At this time, when he worked especially for Paramount, he married DeMille's daughter, Katherine, a decision that, far from helping him to progress more quickly on the screen, caused him some inconvenience.
Anthony Quinn in La strada (1954)
In the early 1940s he moved to Warner, a studio that provided him with more interesting roles, and began to forge a relationship with renowned actors and actresses. City of Conquest (1940), by Anatole Litvak, Blood and Sand (1940), by Rouben Mamoulian and They died with their boots on (1941 ), by Raoul Walsh, were some of his titles.He toured other studios like Paramount, 20th Century-Fox and RKO, in all kinds of comedies, adventures, musicals, westerns .and especially highlighted his participation in Incident in Ox-Bow (1943), by William Wellman.
At the time he obtained American citizenship in 1947, he returned to the theater to perform on Broadway The Gentleman from Athens and, above all, A streetcar named Desire , in the role of Stanley Kowalski, replacing Marlon Brando.The theatrical success was quickly joined by the cinematographic one, as he was already offered more interesting roles such as that of Eufemio Zapata, brother of the peasant leader Emiliano Zapata who played Marlon Brando in ¡Viva Zapata! (1952), by Elia Kazan, for which he received his first Academy Award.
His foray into Italy resulted in another resounding success for the complex role of Zampanó in La strada (1954), by Federico Fellini, which achieved more notoriety after the Oscar that received the movie.Back in Hollywood, his role as Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh's friend in the film The Madman with Red Hair (1956), by Vincente Minnelli, served him on a platter his second Best Actor Oscar Secondary.
He remained artistically between the United States and Europe, with a prolific career that undoubtedly hurt him when it came to choosing his roles better.However, he was always among the most interesting casts of the sixties and achieved excellent notoriety for his interventions in Los cañones del Navarone (1961), by J.Lee Thompson, Barrabás (1961), by Richard Fleischer, Lawrence of Arabia (1962), by David Lean, and especially Zorba the Greek (1964), by Michael Cacoyannis, with which he obtained a new Oscar nomination.During these years he married Iolanda Addolori, whom he had met on the set of Barabbas .
In Los cañones del Navarone ( 1961) and Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
Its star continued to shine in the following decades to confirm the greatness of a actor capable of adopting a thousand and one characterizations and always living up to the demands of the script.His popularity was always above the profitability of many of his films, such as The Fisherman's Sandals (1968), by Michael Anderson, The Ferramonti Heritage (1975), by Mauro Bolognini, The sons of Sánchez (1978), The lion of the desert (1979), by Moustapha Akkad, Valentina (1982), from Antonio J.Betancor, Wild Fever (1991), by Spike Lee and so on, until his last appearances on the big screen.
On television he had a notable presence in numerous programs from his first intervention in an episode of the series "Philco Playhouse" (1949).He went through "Schlitz Playhouse of Stars" (1951-55), "The Ed Sullivan Show" (1963), the series "The city" and "The man and the city" (both from 1971) and "The Mike Douglas Show" (1971), among other television consumer products.He directed only one film: Los bucaneros (1958), with little success.He cultivated painting and sculpture in his last years of life, in which he remained attached to what was his private secretary, Kathy Benvy.
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