- Title: USA: VETERAN SCREEN LEGEND ANTHONY QUINN DIES AGED 86
- Date: 3rd June 2001
- Summary: HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES (JANUARY 19, 1997) (REUTERS-ACCESS ALL) SMV, ANTHONY QUINN TALKING TO REPORTER AT GOLDEN GLOBE AWARD CEREMONY
- Embargoed: 18th June 2001 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, WASHINGTON D.C. AND HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA., UNITED STATES/ NEAR NUREMBERG, GERMANY
- Country: USA
- Reuters ID: LVA3BZ6T0HLYTMOCJV4O0SGT3IQQ
- Story Text: The silver screen has lost another one of its heroes.
Actor Anthony Quinn has died at the age of 86.
Actor Anthony Quinn, the two-time Academy Award winning movie star known for his portrayal of earthy characters with a zest for life, died in a Boston hospital. A spokeswoman at Brigham and Women's hospital told reporters he died at 9:29 a.m. (1329 GMT) on Sunday (June 03) but declined to give further information.
Born in Mexico in 1915, Quinn won two Academy Awards for best supporting actor, one for his 1952 role as a Mexican revolutionary in "Viva Zapata!" and another four years later for his portrayal of the French painter Paul Gauguin in the film "Lust for Life."
Quinn was best known for his memorable portrayal of the title character in "Zorba the Greek" (1964). For Quinn, Zorba was far more than just a film role.
"I am Zorba," Quinn once said of the hero of the movie, a worldly wise Greek who lived life to the fullest.
Like Zorba, Quinn's life was painted on a broad canvas, ranging from an impoverished childhood in Mexico and Los Angeles to the pampered luxury of a Hollywood star.
Anthony Rudolph Oaxaca Quinn was born on April 21, 1915, in Chihuahua, Mexico, where his half-Irish father Francisco (Frank) Quinn had married a Mexican girl of Aztec Indian ancestry, Manuela, while fighting for revolutionary leader Pancho Villa.
The family moved to El Paso, Texas, and three years later to Los Angeles in search of work. Quinn was raised in a poor district of Los Angeles and never forgot his past.
As a teen-ager, he underwent minor tongue surgery to improve his speech and afterwards took voice lessons at a Los Angeles drama school, paying the fee by cleaning windows and floors. He began appearing in stage productions at 18.
Mae West gave Quinn his first big chance on stage in the play "Clean Beds" which she financed and produced. His part was a take-off of John Barrymore, then an aging actor fading from the limelight.
Quinn's first screen role -- a 45-second appearance -- came in the film "Parole" in 1936.
He later went on to appear in such movies as "Lawrence of Arabia" (1962), "Guns of Navarone" (1961) and "La Strada"
(1954).
"To me, acting...(is) living," he once said. "I love to live, so I live. I love to act, so I act. I gotta have vitality."
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