Anthony Quinn, the Mexican-born Hollywood star who carved a niche playing larger-than-life, good-hearted ruffians, most famously Zorba the Greek, died in a Boston hospital yesterday, aged 86.
His death, from respiratory failure, was announced by the mayor of Providence, Rhode Island, Vincent “Buddy” Cianci. “I was proud to call him a friend,” Mr Cianci said.
The actor had been living in Rhode Island, where he devoted most of his time to painting and sculpture after a film career spanning 60 years and more than 150 films.
He won Oscars for best supporting actor in Viva Zapata! (1952), in which he played Marlon Brando’s brother, and in Lust for Life (1956), for an eight-minute cameo role as the artist Paul Gauguin. He also starred in The Guns of Navarone.
But his best-known role, which defined him for the rest of the career in the eyes of the world, was as the Greek peasant Zorba in the 1965 film of Nikos Kazantzakis’s novel.
Anthony Quinn was born in 1915 in Chihuahua, Mexico, to a Mexican-Indian mother and Mexican-Irish father, who had fought in thecountry’s war for independence.
The family later moved to Los Angeles, where he first aspired to become an architect, under the mentorship of Frank Lloyd Wright, but instead drifted into films.
Quinn often complained that his native country did not appreciate his achievements because of his Irish name. But he also felt he was confined for much of his career to stereotypical Hispanic roles by the ingrained racism of Hollywood, and spoke out against injustices he perceived against his fellow Latin Americans.
The other role for which he became famous was the unfaithful husband. He had at least 13 children by five women, three of whom he married, including Katherine de Mille, the adopted daughter of Cecil B de Mille. In 1994 he left his second wife, Iolanda Addolori, to live with his secretary, Kathy Benvin.
Speaking about the prospect of death a few years ago, he said he wanted to be laid to rest under a tree at his home in Rhode Island. “The roots of the tree intrigued me. And the fact that children play around the tree, and I’ll be part of their games. And my wife can come and sit down under the shade of that tree and talk to me is wonderful. I mean, I don’t want to be in some hole in the ground far away.”