Anthony Quinn Discusses His Favorite Roles | The Dick Cavett Show

i assume that anthony quinn had probably made at least 100 movies um because i i've seen him for so many years and enjoyed him so much and i checked and found that he has not made 100 movies he's only made 96 which but i'm sure he'll get a few more jobs that's not counting a couple of unreleased films and it would be absurd to go through to start going through the titles of his films but as he sits here i assume they will they will come up um his latest film is shoes of the the shoes of the fishermen or possibly just shoes i don't know about the the which will be premiered this week and his film career is so impressive that i don't know if it's ever been done to an actor before but the museum of modern art right now has a retrospective exhibition or show of stills from anthony quinn films and his incredible range and so on as can be seen there and possibly some of it right here will you welcome anthony quinn well i've never been referred to as a brief friend before thank you very much [Laughter] well this is a pleasure because i'm mistaken for you so often on the street it's just nice to get that over wish i had your hairline well you may if you want it is it an odd feeling to see yourself on display in a museum well you certainly feel like a museum piece i i thought that they should have waited a couple of years before they i i was uh as a matter of fact the uh my first impression was to laugh at myself because as you walked into this room they had pictures of mice of me when i was uh 18 years old when i started my career and i really felt i was looking at my son i didn't feel i was looking at myself i must be uh you you also could you'll help me out occasionally won't you you know i'll just jump into the conversation this is a i just want to show two pictures here um here's this one is i'm not sure the title of this film maybe it's written on it it's is that anime wong that's anime one can you get a shot of this for if i do that and uh one of those people is anthony quinn of course and so is one of so is that one that's a remarkable range isn't it and there's been several stops along the way when when was the anime wong film was that your first film no i think that was made in uh i would say about 1939 or 40. i was about uh what was i about 23 or 4 years old i made that picture okay one light yes please i'm nervous no kidding hmm i feel like uh you're nearly six films well i feel like lee does you know television always reminds me of kind of instant analysis you know and i feel that you're suddenly on and everything and of course i i love the camera uh one of the um one of the reasons why i love to work is because i really love the camera um a very dear friend of mine akim tamirov said that every morning he kissed the camera well i don't go that far not publicly anyway i i know i know that it has this microscopic kind of looking into you and you have to be truthful with it i think that that's one of the things that the politicians have found out that you really have to be honest with it and you can't lie to it i heard a peculiar story i wouldn't i don't know if you want to talk about it not that you had a strange illness while playing the pope and um well that's kind of the occupational hazard of making a picture like the issues of the fisherman i felt the responsibility of my anthony quinn my background to uh to presume to play the spiritual advisor of 800 million people was really more than i could handle and uh about a month into the picture i suddenly came down with a strange malady simply because i think i was afraid of the responsibility of going on with the picture i was kind of hoping that they would recast and get someone else to play the part and my face [Music] became all swollen and distorted and i was out of the picture for three weeks and i really kept you know hoping that they would find somebody else to do the part and much to my amazement the producer george england came to me and said look we have to wait for you five years we will but you have to finish this picture and i thought well there's no way of getting away from it and one of the leading dermatologists in in rome happens to be a jesuit priest his name is father brandina and they finally took me to see him to find out what was possibly causing this infection my face and he said well you're suffering from what they call a medieval malady called the monks disease and that was the fact that uh in in the uh 14th and 15th century when the young novitiates were about to decide whether to really enter into the priesthood the conflict this great emotional conflict whether to leave the material world behind and enter into this spiritual world whether they themselves were capable of of uh fulfilling this obligation that they would develop these strange maladies in order to avoid the responsibility and he said what what is your problem and i said well i'm supposed to be the pope and he said well i can understand i'm surprised you're not more swollen than you are would've been funny if you didn't know who you are i can see i'm saying got a guy in here thinks he's the pope uh we'll be back in a moment after this one time several weeks ago i had trevor howard on the show and he's a an interesting person to interview because he doesn't overstate his answers and if he doesn't have one he doesn't give one and it's a bit sticky sometimes and i said to him is it a dumb question to ask an actor what his favorite film was and there was about a 30-second pause and he said pretty dumb yes so i haven't asked that question since but i assume it's still a dumb question in other words you're asking me that was a long way of asking you what your favorite film was and how dumb you think i am i must say i don't have one i've made almost i imagine almost 100 pictures and i approached each one as if it was hamlet obviously most of them were not hamlet but um i approached them with the same kind of enthusiasm same kind of love uh i i can only say that i have eight children and i would be loved to uh say which one is my favorite i feel the same way about motion pictures you know the the usual thing is to say that the big successes are your favorites i could easily say uh the character of zorba or uh or la strada or lust for life or viva zapata but i would be lying because one of my favorites as a matter of fact one of one of the favorites among many is a picture that wasn't an instant success and i the other day when i went to see these photographs at the museum i suddenly realized how close i felt to that character and that was the character in uh requiem for a heavyweight some reason i thought you were going to say that i don't know why we had dick smith on this show yesterday and he had pictures of your face with the built up latex swollen eyes absolutely totally authentic as was the performance um by the way how did you manage to not hurt your voice making that film the way you used it well i i actually it was rather relaxing for for once to assume somebody else's voice it was kind of a a treat not to use my own i i get a little tired of my own voice and i had a i had a fighter as a matter of fact working with me uh in that picture and uh he had taken so many punches in his larynx that they had to kind of talk like that [Music] he's a wonderful guy because he's a very sweet fella and he has a kind of a strange philosophy and he says he every morning we come to work he says sweetie sweetheart he says just stay elusive just stay elusive i think he drove my cab on the way over here i know that voice i interrupted you just before that we talked about dick smith or something in that moment i think he's a genius as a matter of fact uh i was so enthralled by his uh his uh his great talent that i was making a picture in yugoslavia and um i was a player supposed to play uh i did play uh genjus khan and i took him over at the yugoslavia with me and he did the most fantastic makeup for me i wish the picture had been as good as his makeup we had that picture here who knows and um lawrence of arabia that great who did my nose that's a terrible that's a terrible image this is a nose interview uh a man a wonderful man by the name of uh parker charlie parker he's a great makeup man in england as a matter of fact but that that was kind of uh put together with paper mache and all sorts of strange things about that noise does it itch after a while i mean when you're out there acting you gotta you can't scratch yes you have terrible problems with it we'll have other nose questions after uh after a pause or so stay there [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign

Channel: The Dick Cavett Show

Views: 67,985

Keywords: The Dick Cavett Show, Talk Show, Musician, Celebrities, Dick Cavett, United States, Chat Show, Interview, anthony quinn, anthony quinn interview, anthony quinn the pope, anthony quinn laurence of arabia, laurence of arabia, lawrence of arabia, anthony quinn dick cavett

Id: 7skusFKJyi8

Length: 10min 19sec (619 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 07 2020