One Man Tango

I first met Anthony Quinn when he was playing San Jose Center for Performing Arts. I was with the ABC affiliate and also doing a spanish language broadcast on weekends.When we were introduced I purposely pronounced my last name(Gomez) with emphasis. Quinn smiled with a slight gleam in his eye and when I asked hin to do an interview in spanish he referred to me as "Mijo" literally, my son, an encompassing term of endearment thoughout the spanish speaking world. We spoke about a variety of topics ranging from the Mexican Revolution to the role of latinos in contemporary televison. We were both perplexed over Hollywood's inability to create a series around Hispanic characters.He spoke about his own early days as pioneer in the old hollywood.When the center publicity director came to end the interview he asked my name again and assured me there would be tickets for me at the box office that night. Quinn's second book epitomizes this easy grace I saw in him. He had been the token Mexican for so many years he could shoulder any stupid concerns of those who employed him. His lifelong reflections in "One Man Tango" are candid, honest, off-handedly told and utterly charming. He eases from one decade to another in a single breath.The mexican revolution...the great depression....Barrymore, Italian cooking, Cecil Bde Mile, live theater....roaring 20's boxing clubs and his lifetime interest in painting all make up a patchwork quilt of fascinating and informative background to host of fascinating topics. Quinn can be ruthlessly honest and candid or almost childish in his musings about things that might have been. Above all, he wastes no time on regrets or lamentations.Of the hundreds of roles he has given us,those earthy and passionate characters such as Zapata or Van Gough's brother seem closest to his personna in the book. He says no one wanted hinm to do Zorba the Greek and now it was all they wanted from him....His ability to see life (his own, particularly) with warts and all is refreshing and infused with an intellectual honesty rare in such a book. Like any superior autobiography,Quinn allows you to see things from his point of view but always with a detached eye for the larger picture. Quinn covers most of the 20th century in these ramblings and the reader can only wish they would go on another 200 pages. A superb read!!

This is Anthony Quinn's second autobiography. Since he lived to be 86, he apparently felt that he couldn't tell his life story in only one autobiography. He was probably correct in that assumption. As of this moment, I've not read his 1972 "The Original Sin" but it will probably be my next read. Quinn was an excellent writer as well as a visual artist and famous stage and film actor. He was also a very randy fellow he couldn't keep his hands off the beautiful women he attracted like bees to honey. He had thirteen children from his three wives and three known,long-time mistresses. Like most motion pictures stars he had affairs with most of the beautiful actresses he met in his 100 plus motion pictures and plays. One of his affairs involved actress Ruth Warrick in 1945. "Years later, she offered the following comment to a reporter: `Anthony Quinn, in the middle of a love affair with me, once said he wanted to f**k all the women in the world, and impregnate all of them. I never knew he'd get this far.'" Despite his inability to resist the ladies for whom his addiction and appeal was legendary, Quinn lived a life that could not have been fictionalized to be more interesting. He was born in a Mexican hut to a mother who had only recently been sent home from the front lines of the Mexican Revolution. She had wanted to remain and continue fighting, but her obvious pregnancy resulted in her being sent home. Her husband stayed and continued fighting with Poncho Villa. Years later his father moved to Los Angeles and eventually became an assistant cameraman at Zelig's Movie Studio. Anthony showed a talent for art early in life. Quinn studied briefly with Frank Lloyd Wright through the Taliesin Fellowship he won in a high school architectural design contest. Quinn was sent to have his speech impediment surgically corrected on Wright's recommendation. To further correct his speech he was sent to an acting school. That, combined with his father's friendships at Zelig's, led to Quinn being hired as an extra in the movies. This second autobiography was published in 1997 when the actor was eighty-two years old. His last two children were born in 1993 and 1996 to Quinn and his third wife Kathy Benvin. Both his first wife Katherine DeMille and his third wife were named Katherine, which is one of those odd coincidences that make his life a bit confusing for the reader. This memoir is 419 pages long and is written in such a way that the reader never gets bored. The reader may, however, get exhausted because the vehicle Quinn uses to tie his life experiences together is one of his day-long bicycle rides around the steep hills of his Italian Villa. He is constantly climbing another hill or avoiding a swerving truck coming around the next mountain bend. During this physically tiring day of bike riding he reminisces about his long life, his many crazy experiences, the people he has met and many of the women he has loved or bedded. He is old enough to be trying to make sense of his rich life experiences and to understand his purpose in life. As an artist he feels that he must constantly be creating or he will die. Quinn turns out to be a deep thinker in addition to a talented actor, painter, sculptor and writer. It's useless for me to even attempt to convey some of the wise sage advice and observations that Anthony expresses so eloquently. So I won't try. His book is peppered with fascinating characters he has met. Frederico Fellini who directed him to an academy award nomination in "La Strada" gave him some memorable advice about giving interviews to journalists. "Why do you tell these people the truth?""Me, I never tell the truth to a journalist. I always lie. It is like an exercise to me, because when I lie I have to use my imagination...you will read it in the papers the next day." After reading that summary of Fellini's advice to Quinn I wondered if Anthony might not have taken it too much to heart. I especially wondered when I read the last few lines of the book when Quinn wrote: "I wish to go out in style. There will be no pine box sunk six feet under ground, no urn to be placed on a mantle and forgotten. No...There will be my dozen children, carrying me up a hill in Chihuahua and leaving me to rot in the hot sun. I can picture the scene, transposed over the fertile ground of my youth. (I have the specific hill mapped for my executors.) I will be laid to rest at the top of the rise, a feast for the vultures. My children will go back to the rest of their lives and the birds will pick at what is left of me. They will lift me up, piecemeal, and defecate me out all over the countryside, returning me to the earth from which I had sprung, leaving me forever a part of all Mexico. "And the dance goes on." Now the book doesn't tell you if that is what Quinn's executors really did concerning his funeral arrangements. If you are like me, you will head straight to the Internet to find out where and how Quinn's funeral was actually carried out. The reader may be surprised. The reader definitely won't be bored with this book. Anthony Quinn was a man peddling madly on his bicycle to find the truth of life. He was always in search of the answers to the age-old questions: "Who Are We, Why Are We Here, Where Are We Going?" Remember than Quinn won an Oscar for his role as Gauguin in "Lust for Life." During the filming of that motion picture he felt that Gauguin's ghost had actually taken over his body and soul in order to properly portray his life for the silver screen. Quinn always leaves the reader of his autobiography wanting to know more. This is one of the most enjoyable autobiographies this reviewer has ever had the multiple pleasures of reading.

This is Anthony Quinn's autobiography. The book is a masterpiece really. The account of his attempted seduction by Mae West is worth the read alone, and that’s hardly the best part. But this book is by no means another tired account of the escapades and exploits of a Hollywood star. Anthony Quinn’s writing is poetic, introspective, philosophical, self-effacing, and redemptive. The man wrote as well as he acted, bearing his heart and soul with every sentence. Anthony Quinn lived a life that transcended anything that could be captured in a novel or on film. There are plenty of lurid details in here, but he writes with a raw honesty that never seems sensational or exploitative. Anthony Quinn was the quintessential "man's man," but he seemed to have a soft and genuine soul. He was a true artist, and quite a versatile artist as well - an actor, a writer, a painter and a sculptor. This book is one of the most fascinating autobiographies I've ever read (and I've read many). What a joyful discovery. I highly recommend it!

Good

Good book BAD CONDITION

We are all a product of our environment but it's up to us to make a life true to our selves in order to find happiness and wisdom. Today when everything is analyzed so much this book tells us that life is not a destination, it's a journey. Most of us don't hurt people intentionally but unfortunately we do to be true to our selves. Wisdom is gained by living, experiencing pain and love. Quinn lived his life and he apologizes for nothing. He is who he is and that's what made him and extraordinary man. His thirst & passion for life was total, yes he screwed it up in some cases but he paid for it. I 'm so happy that I was able to purchase this book; I did read it a long time ago and it left a mark. Now that I'm in my sixties I understand it totally. I to have lived my life, I have no regrets and it's not over yet, after all age is just a number. The book is honest, it's raw; you might not like his life but it was his life and that is the bottom line. I would highly recommend this book to both women and men; read it with an open mind and without judgement.Thank you Amazon for this great find.G. WattsToronto, Canada

I was quite delightfully surprised by the writing gifts of Mr. Quinn.

A very good read I liked Anthony quinn a good actor