Anthony Quinn Biography

Fast Facts

• Was nominated for a Tony Award for his portrayal of King Henry II in the Broadway production of "Becket" in 1960
• Was honored with several lifetime achievement awards, some of them posthumously, including one from the Huelva Latin American Film Festival and one from the Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival
• After his father died, he began skipping school in favor of working to support his family, and by the time he was 18 he had worked as a farmer, a taxi driver, a preacher, a newsboy, and a welterweight boxer
• Won an architecture contest during high school that gave him the opportunity to work with Frank Lloyd Wright, who would later convince him to attend acting school to improve his speech
• Became interested in art from a young age, entering and winning his first sculpting competition at the age of 12 and learning how to draw by sketching movie stars
• Quote: "Someone once said if I was left on an island, I'd reconstruct the rocks․ I have a need to say I was here․"
• Best known for his role as Alexis Zorba in "Zorba the Greek," as Auda Abu Tayi in "Lawrence of Arabia," and as Paul Gauguin in "Lust for Life․"
• During his later years he began to focus again on his painting and sculpting, finding success from his very first one-man exhibition at a gallery in Honolulu, Hawaii, where he sold every piece in the show
• Wrote two autobiographies: "The Original Sin" in 1974 and "One Man Tango" in 1994
• Although he was often relegated to so-called "exotic" roles in Western films due to his ethnicity, he frequently brought a much greater depth and emotional honesty to those characters than did other, more stereotypical portrayals of the time