Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, July 18, 1995 TAG: 9507180021
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ALEX WITCHEL N.Y. TIMES NEWS SERVICE
DATELINE: NEW YORK LENGTH: Long
``Not to smoke, not to drink and not to get involved with women like you,'' he says.
Excuse me?
``An American woman,'' he says. ``I have to be married to a European woman. I avoid women like you because you challenge me and I don't like to be challenged. I was taught by my father that the only way to fight with a woman is to grab your hat and run.''
Not today.
Today, as it happens, Quinn is holding forth in his pied-a-terre-cum-office on the Upper East Side about his new autobiography, ``One Man Tango'' (HarperCollins). But he's running quite late, rattled by a telephone interview in which he wrestled mightily with the
question of his nationality. His father was half Mexican, half Irish; his mother, half Mexican, half Indian. But he prefers to claim no nationality at all - or every nationality at once. He played the Pope, after all, and Zorba the Greek. You get the idea.
Then, of course, there are women to discuss, and in Quinn's case, they take up an awful lot of time. His behavior with them summons his favorite metaphor for acting: a snake that sheds its skin. His most recent metamorphosis was bloody enough to precipitate divorce proceedings by his wife of 29 years, Iolanda: After his 33-year-old girlfriend, Kathy Benvin, had their daughter, Antonia, Quinn moved in with them.
Not that having children out of wedlock is a novelty for the actor. He has two with a woman in Germany and one with a woman in France. And although he has always supported them, he never considered living with one of the mothers. Until now.
Antonia is actually his 12th child. In addition to the French and German children, he also has three with Iolanda and five from his first marriage, to Katherine DeMille, Cecil B.'s daughter. (Their son Christopher drowned at 3 in W.C. Fields' swimming pool.) His 11 other children range in age from 2 to 54.
It's an accomplishment that he found time to write a book at all.
``I did it to keep them all from writing `Father Dear,''' Quinn says, settling onto the couch in his living room, underneath two Picassos. ``I decided I'll tell the truth before they tell it. One lives, Thoreau said, lives of quiet desperation, which comes from the guilts. I wanted to straighten out things I'd been hiding. I've been brave in my work. Why not my life?''
The title of his book comes from Orson Welles, who called Quinn a one-man tango after his affair with Rita Hayworth. Quinn writes, ``I had no idea what he meant by this.'' So why did he use it?
``I actually wanted the title to be `Suddenly Sunset,' but the publisher thought that was negative,'' he says. ``Welles meant it in the Latin way.''
He stops to sing a tango.
``It's a complaint, a note of defiance that you usually need a companion to fight the world with you. I thought I didn't need anybody. I've always had to do it myself.
``I was never accepted in Mexico as part of their culture, and neither was my father, who fought in the Mexican revolution for Pancho Villa. I was never accepted as an American here. That was the time during the war when Van Johnson was the hero type, the blond boys were the heroes. So I played the villains. I always gave them a background, a pride so they would be full-bodied and -souled.''
Villains used to mean ethnic characters - Mexicans, Indians - and Quinn had plenty of time to study them, growing up first in El Paso, then all over California, where he and his family were migrant workers before settling in Los Angeles. Eventually, of course, he moved on to more prominent roles, winning Academy Awards for ``Viva Zapata!'' and ``Lust for Life,'' and making classics like ``Lawrence of Arabia'' and ``La Strada.''
Some of these movies are on videotape near the entrance to the apartment, where his bicycle is parked. In the living room are a drafting table and many self-portraits. (Quinn has had exhibitions of his painting and sculpture throughout the world.) His assistant, Therese Curran, sits near the kitchen typing on a computer. Or at least trying. He bellows for her constantly.
``Therese! What was the name of that man who interviewed me yesterday?'' Dick Cavett.
``Therese! What is the name of the town in New Jersey where I have my studio now that this one is too small?'' Hackensack.
And when he spills sunflower seeds from their bowl onto the coffee table, he doesn't bother to collect them. ``She'll put them back,'' he declares.
It's moments like these when Quinn seems less handsome than he still is. What is this attitude he has toward women?
He looks injured. ``What do you mean?'' he says. ``I idealize women. I was born into a culture that told you to.''
Yes, but one of his most dogged obsessions in the book is his insistence, nay worship, of women as virgins. When he discovered on his wedding night that Katherine DeMille, at 26, was not one, he sent her packing to Reno to get a divorce. Though he reconsidered a few hours later, he held it against her for the rest of their marriage.
``I was the perfect picture of a Mexican boy,'' he says, suddenly having no difficulty choosing a nationality. ``That was how marriages in Mexico or Spain were. You go to bed and the woman proudly waves the sheet dark with blood. Ah, bravo. If not, there's trouble in the family.
``You were brought up to deserve a virgin. My woman must be my woman. I believe in that stuff. I believe in monogamy.''
What?
``No, I do. With Katherine I was torn by a word my father had beaten into my head. Responsibility. I said I married her for better or worse, sickness or health. So I stayed.''
But why is it OK for him to have affairs and extramarital children while the women must start out virgins and remain solely dedicated to him?
``Ah, no!'' he says, laughing. ``Let's talk about movies or painting instead.'' He breaks a cookie in half before eating it, dropping crumbs on the floor. Then he chokes on it.
``Well, OK, I'll tell you,'' he says finally. ``I just did a show. Therese! What was that TV show I did? Ah, Charles Grodin. A woman stood up and said, `You're very nice-looking, but why are you such a naughty man?' I said: `Look, honey, I'm an immigrant here. I wasn't born with your values. My family taught me different things.' ''
``I am everything, some Catholic, some Jew. Every nationality I act I study. I had to make my own laws. I was born in a desert with nothing but snakes and lizards to help my mother bring me to life. We had nothing to eat. A revolution is a terrible thing.''
In his book, he talks about the secret fears people carry from childhood that motivate them. What are his?
``Anonymity,'' he says immediately. ``Being nobody. Having nothing to justify my life. I find it easier to tell the truth now. I hope in this book I finally say everything I want to say about myself.''
But he won't say where he lives in New York with his daughter and girlfriend. ``We are moving far away soon,'' he says mysteriously. Where? He smiles. ``To America.''
Then he imitates his daughter. ``If you ask her, `What's your name?' she'll say, `Tony Quinn, Tony Quinn.' And then if you ask her, `Who's your father?' she says, `Tony Quinn.' '' He laughs. ``I adore her. My God, she and my girlfriend and I play chess at night, and I'm reading books about composers, learning music, living a wonderful life. I sleep like a baby, which I haven't in years.''
``I want to get all my stuff together, things I like to be around,'' he continues, putting his feet up on the table. ``My books are all over: Italy, my wife's house, the girl where I live now. I also love to collect eggs. I love the shape of them. I'm a rodent. I collect little sticks and wood. Little pieces of rock on the beach. See?''
He walks toward a collection on a shelf. That must be some beach. These rocks have price tags.
Before establishing his new home, he says, he is leaving soon for Germany to make a film called ``Seven Servants,'' in which he plays an unhappy man who becomes an octopus.
Then, conjuring his snake image, he says: ``Zorba! That boring ass. I don't just want to play Zorba. I want to play Tolstoy next. Look at the great changes he went through. Actors change every 10 years, or should. How many people my age are still acting? Not that I'm shocking the world, but instinctively I make the world aware of something.''
Divorce, for one thing. ``My wife is getting a divorce; I am not,'' he says. ``I am very well aware I did something I shouldn't have, having illegitimate children. I hate that word! I went against the laws of the country, the debs, all the politicians. When I called my wife to tell her what I'd done, I told her she could separate from me or divorce me.''
She responded, he says, by telling him never to see the woman or daughter again and to ``come home and straighten your life out.''
``So I did it one year,'' he says, ``but my head was going crazy.'' He feigns being punched.
``I said, `I can't live with this.' So I took my little daughter away and the girl who I love, who I've been faithful to for 10 years. My wife is now divorcing me very roughly. She writes articles in European magazines that pay her $100,000 to $150,000, so she's doing very well by divorcing me, calling me terrible names.''
(Raoul Lionel Felder, the Manhattan lawyer who represents Iolanda Quinn, said she had never been paid for her articles. ``This version of the baby story is maybe the 104th I've heard,'' Felder said. ``He's a master of improvisation. He either makes it up as he goes along, or he can't distinguish reality from illusion.'')
Quinn seems determined to tune out discord.
``For the first time I don't care who doesn't like me,'' he says. ``Let me tell you something: I just had a party. I sent out 250 invitations saying I'm going to be 80 and you've all been my friends and I want to tell you things you don't know about me. I also want you to meet my family. You all know about my doings, which I want to face as honestly as I can.
``And the loveliest people turned up. My wife called many people and said, `You've been my friend and Tony's, but if you're mine you don't go.' But the place was full, the golf club at Bel Air, and there was an aura of real happiness there. Red Buttons got up and made a speech about me, and so did Maureen O'Hara.
``I got up and said: `I want to be honest tonight about tonight. All my kids are here but the Italian ones since their mother wouldn't let them come.' And the children all stood up and I said, `The one thing you have in common is that you haven't met your sister.' And Tonia got up and they all kissed her.''
He sighs contentedly. ``Now I can die happy. I've faced myself and all my guilts. I wondered if I still had 250 friends, and I did.''
His look shifts to concern. ``You know, I don't want you leaving here thinking I don't know who I am,'' he says. ``I don't know who I want to be. I'm honest with myself, but when am I going to say it's enough?''
Skipping the answer, he gets up and waits in the doorway for the elevator to come. Two women walk down the hall. One of them turns. ``Are you a movie star?'' she asks. The elevator door closes before he answers. But his expression is clear. The snake is charmed.
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