Anthony Quinn was often thought of as being larger than life. He was a talented actor who played many diverse roles and is now a Hollywood legend.
Anthony Quinn was born Anthony Rudloph Oaxaca Quinn on April 12, 1915 in Chihuahua, Mexico of a Mexican-Indian mother and an Irish father. When he was four years old, his family moved to California, where he was raised in poverty in East Los Angeles and shined shoes and sold newspapers.
Before he launched his acting career, Quinn worked at a variety of odd jobs including a boxer, butcher, street corner preacher and a worker in a slaughterhouse. At one point, he had even been a painter before trying his hand at acting. He launched his film career playing small character roles in several movies in 1936, including his debut in a movie called Parole. He also had small parts in Sworn Enemy and Night Waitress in 1936 before signing with Paramount, where he had an exclusive contract until 1940, generally playing gangsters and Indians. Some of the films he did for Paramount, include The Plainsman in 1936, which was directed by Cecil B. DeMille, who eventually became Quinn's father-in-law, Waikiki Wedding, The Last Train from Madrid, Daughter of Shanghai, all done in 1937, The Buccaneer, Tip-Off Girls, Bulldog Drummond in Africa, King of Alcatraz, all done in 1938, King of Chinatown, Television Spy, Union Pacific, all done in 1939 and Parole Fixer, The Ghost Breakers and Road to Singapore, all done in 1940.
In 1937, Quinn married director Cecil B. DeMille's daughter Katherine DeMille. Perhaps he though that this would help further his career but he was still relegated to playing all types of ethnic villians in films for Paramount through the 1940s. According to Quinn about his early career, he said, "They said all I was good for was playing Indians."
In the 1940s, Quinn became a naturalized citizen. During the World War II years, Quinn did most of his work at Warner Brothers and 20th Century Fox, although he did return to Paramount to do Road to Morocco with Bob Hope and Bing Crosby.
Quinn was still being cast as a character player but his assignments were becoming increasingly more important and he was getting into bigger and better pictures, including City for Conquest in 1940, Blood and Sand and Manpower, both in 1941, They Died with Their Boots On in 1941 as Chief Crazy Horse, the Black Swan and Larceny in 1942, the Ox-Bow Incident and Guadalcanal Diary both in 1943, Buffalo Bill, Roger Touhy, Gangster and Irish Eyes Are Smiling in 1944 and Where Do We Go From Here and Back to Bataan, where he costarred with John Wayne in 1945.
By 1947 he was a veteran of over 50 films and had played Mafia dons, Indians, soldiers, Hawaiian chiefs and comical Arab sheiks. But he was still not considered a major star. He continued to be cast as the swarthy and powerfully built, rugged exotic characters of varying backgrounds. Quinn decided to try and return to the theater, where he found success for a three-year stint playing Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire.
Also in 1947, Quinn starred in a low-budget movie, Black Gold with his wife Katherine for Allied Artists. Once again, he played an Indian, proud but kind, who discovers oil on his property and allows a Chinese refugee to race his prize thoroughbred. Quinn did an excellent job and this performance ranks among one of his best. He appeared in several other films after this movie, including a terrific movie called The Brave Bulls about bullfighting in 1951. But it was in 1952 that Anthony Quinn got his first big break in Viva Zapata with Marlon Brando. He won his first Academy Award playing the brother of the famed Mexican revolutionary. Starring opposite Brando, Quinn made his first significant mark on his potential career as a Hollywood star. He held his own against the screen presence and charisma of Brando and held firm against his moodiness. His powerful scenes showed emotion and rendered emotion from the audience. Perhaps it was Quinn's own real life credo when he knowingly and believably states, "I have loved with all my heart 100 women that I never want to see again." Perhaps he was painting a picture of what it was like to be a young and virile Anthony Quinn. Although his escapades continued well into his later years.
After winning the Oscar,...
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