Anthony Quinn

Launching that career in 1936, Quinn worked within the legendary limitations of the Hollywood system. He was a contract player, performing in whatever picture the studio assigned. That provided some choice opportunities—two Hope and Crosby Road pictures, the bullfighting bravura of Blood and Sand, and the disturbing lynch-mob parable, The Ox-Bow Incident. From his first real role at twenty-one in DeMille’s The Plainsman, Quinn conveyed the natural poise of an actor with more years and more roles under his belt. That poise never left, even as the sleek beauty of his twenties weathered into what The New York Times would later call his “lordly, grizzled charisma.”

He was, paradoxically, constrained by his looks and his bearing. His suave Latino handsomeness and his easy masculine manner were not the stuff of 1930s leading


							Launching that career in 1936, Quinn worked within the legendary limitations of the Hollywood system. He was a contract player, performing in whatever picture the studio assigned. That provided some choice opportunities—two Hope and Crosby Road pictures, the bullfighting bravura of Blood and Sand, and the disturbing lynch-mob parable, The Ox-Bow Incident. From his first real role at twenty-one in DeMille’s The Plainsman, Quinn conveyed the natural poise of an actor with more years and more roles under his belt. That poise never left, even as the sleek beauty of his twenties weathered into what The New York Times would later call his “lordly, grizzled charisma.” He was, paradoxically, constrained by his looks and his bearing. His suave Latino handsomeness and his easy masculine manner were not the stuff of 1930s leading


					By Tom Roberts Few actors can lay claim to the length and breadth of Anthony Quinn’s body of work. Across a remarkable sixty-five year career, he worked with actors from Harold Lloyd to Keanu Reeves, from Laurence Olivier and Katharine Hepburn to Arnold Schwarzenegger and Ann-Margret, and with directors from Cecil B. DeMille to Federico Fellini to Spike Lee.