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Overview
Anthony Quinn's One Man Tango is about a day of reckoning unlike any other in the rich life of the legendary actor, a day that leaves him to confront a lifetime of memories, wrestle the lingering demons of his youth, and defy the passage of his time on this earth. Here Quinn rediscovers himself - a child of the Mexican Revolution, smuggled into El Paso on a coal wagon; sculpting his father's tombstone as a young boy; studying architecture under Frank Lloyd Wright; preaching for Aimee Semple McPherson; learning his craft at the hands of Michael Chekhov, Akim Tamiroff, and the great John Barrymore. Along the way there are intimate reminiscences of some of Hollywood's brightest stars (such as Marlon Brando, Gary Cooper, Marilyn Monroe, Laurence Olivier, and Orson Welles), and reflections on the author's short- and long-term affairs with several of Hollywood's leading ladies (including Carole Lombard, Rita Hayworth, and Ingrid Bergman). And there are deliberations on the making of nearly three hundred motion pictures, spanning almost sixty years, including Quinn's defining turns in La Strada, Lawrence of Arabia, The Guns of Navarone; the performances in Viva Zapata! and Lust for Life that earned him Academy Awards; and his visionary role, immortalized on stage and screen, in Zorba the Greek.Colorful and flamboyant, two-time Academy Award-winner Anthony Quinn offers an inside look at his days as a star during the Golden Age of Hollywood. 2 cassettes.
Editorials
Publishers Weekly -
Quinn follows up his first book, The Original Sin, with this deeper, more contemplative memoir recalling his varied careers before and beyond acting. They include stints as one of Aimee Semple McPherson's street preachers working the East Los Angeles barrios, as a prelim fighter in local rings and as an acclaimed painter. Writing with freelancer Paisner, Quinn recalls his self-doubts concerning marriage to Cecil B. DeMille's daughter when he was a lowly Paramount contract player and his early struggles to overcome typecasting as an actor who could play only gangsters and Mexican bandits. With verve and wit he relates how he prepared his most famous roles: Gauguin in Lust for Life, Zampano in La Strada, Zorba in Zorba the Greek and others, and how he managed to put his own personal stamp on the role of Stanley Kowalski in the road company of A Streetcar Named Desire despite Brando's indelible characterization. The 80-year-old Quinn's life reads like a picaresque novel, its rogue hero of cinematic dimension. Photos. (Aug.)Library Journal
Memoirs of a two-time OscarR winner.Book Details
Published
December 31, 1996
Publisher
HarperCollins
Pages
448
Format
Hardcover
ISBN
9780061094910