Zorba's outstretched hand came from a Los Angeles evangelist Quinn once served
Anthony Quinn, born in Mexico during the revolution, boxed and studied architecture under Frank Lloyd Wright before acting. As a boy he preached alongside Aimee Semple McPherson, and he later said her theatrical sweep of the arm inspired the gesture that made Zorba the Greek unforgettable.
He was born Manuel Antonio Rodolfo Quinn Oaxaca in Chihuahua on April 21, 1915. His father Frank, whose own father had come from County Cork, reportedly rode with Pancho Villa before settling in East Los Angeles as a studio assistant cameraman. Quinn himself dismissed the Irish adventurer story as publicists' invention. At 11 he left Catholicism for the Foursquare Gospel church, played in its band and apprenticed as a preacher under McPherson, who he insisted outshone every great actress he later met.
Money from prizefighting paid his way until he went to study art and architecture with Wright at Taliesin. When a studio offered him a contract, Wright told him to accept because architecture would never pay as well; Quinn later said the weekly sum was smaller than the legend claimed. His early Hollywood years, starting with The Plainsman in 1936, cast him as ethnic villains and heavies. By 1947 he had passed 50 films, replaced Marlon Brando as Stanley Kowalski on Broadway and become a naturalised American.
Elia Kazan's Viva Zapata! changed everything. Playing Eufemio Zapata won him the 1952 supporting actor Oscar and made him the first Mexican-born performer to take an Academy Award. A second came for his Paul Gauguin in Lust for Life (1956). In Italy he worked with Fellini on La Strada, and his many Italian roles left audiences convinced he was Italian. Best Actor nominations followed for Wild Is the Wind and Zorba the Greek, and in 1983 he played Zorba 362 times in a stage musical.
One persistent anecdote is false. During Becket on Broadway in 1960, Quinn and Laurence Olivier supposedly swapped roles; in fact Quinn left for a film without ever playing Becket, and Olivier toured as the king instead. Across more than 100 roles until 2001 he also painted, wrote memoirs and campaigned for civil rights, receiving the Cecil B. DeMille award in 1987. He died on June 3, 2001.
Source: Anthony Quinn
