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Oscar winner Quinn dies
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TWO-TIME Oscar winner Anthony Quinn, a former shoeshine boy and preacher who became an international leading man with a film career spanning six decades, has died of respiratory failure. He was 86.
Both Quinn's screen presence and personal style were larger than life. The barrel-chested actor fathered 13 children and starred in 100 feature films, including the fierce Bedouin leader in Lawrence of Arabia in 1962 and the earthy hero of the 1964 film Zorba the Greek.
He won his first Oscar for his work in the 1952 film Viva Zapata! as the brother of Mexican revolutionary leader Emiliano Zapata. He picked up his second award for supporting actor for the 1956 drama Lust for Life.
In a 1987 interview, Quinn said he reached most of the goals he set for himself as a young boy.
``I never satisfied that kid but I think he and I have made a deal now,'' he said, referring to his younger self. ``It's like climbing a mountain: I didn't take him up Mount Everest, but I took him up Mount Whitney.
Quinn died of respiratory failure Sunday morning at a Boston hospital. Quinn lived in nearby Bristol.
Quinn was ``one of the most extraordinary actors the cinema has known'', said Gina Lollobrigida, who played Esmeralda to Quinn's Quasimodo in the 1956 French-Italian movie Notre Dame de Paris.
In a film career that stretched more than 50 years, Quinn portrayed characters including kings, Indians, a pope, a boxer and an artist. One of his most poignant roles was the brutish, tragic circus strongman in Federico Fellini's 1954 film La Strada.
`He was motivated by the passion for his art,'' said Irene Nagy Dessewffy, a friend of Quinn's who produced art shows and publications featuring his work.
In the 1962 film Requiem for a Heavyweight, Quinn's character was battered by Cassius Clay, playing himself. The young boxer would later change his name to Muhammad Ali.
He was divorced from Katherine in 1965 after he fathered two children with Italian costume designer Iolanda Addolari, sparking an international scandal.
In 1972, Quinn wrote his autobiography, The Original Sin, which has been translated into more than 18 languages. He followed with a second volume titled Suddenly Sunset.
In 1978, he played a character closely resembling the late shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis in The Greek Tycoon.
He had recently worked in television, appearing in a 1990 TV movie based on Ernest Hemingway's classic The Old Man and the Sea and the 1996 HBO movie Gotti.(SD-Agencies)
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