Anthony Quinn

Anthony Quinn

Anthony Quinn (April 21, 1915 – June 3, 2001) was a two-time Academy Award-winning Mexican-American actor, as well as a painter and writer. He starred in numerous critically acclaimed and commercially successful films, including Zorba the Greek, Lawrence of Arabia, and Federico Fellini's La strada.

Quinn was born Antonio Rodolfo Quinn Oaxaca in Chihuahua, Chihuahua, Mexico, during the Mexican Revolution. His mother, Manuela "Nellie" Oaxaca, was of Aztec ancestry. His father, Francisco Quinn, of Irish ancestry, was born in Mexico. Frank Quinn rode with Pancho Villa, but later moved to Los Angeles and became an assistant cameraman at a movie studio. In Quinn's autobiography The Original Sin: A Self-Portrait by Anthony Quinn he denied being the son of an "Irish adventurer" and attributed that tale to Hollywood publicists.

When he was six years old, Quinn attended a Catholic church (even thinking he wanted to become a priest). At age eleven, however, he joined the Pentecostals in the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel (the Pentecostal followers of Aimee Semple McPherson).

Quinn grew up first in El Paso, Texas, and later the Boyle Heights and the Echo Park areas of Los Angeles, California. He attended Hammel St. Elementary School, Belvedere Junior High School, Polytechnic High School and finally Belmont High School but left before graduating. Tucson High School in Arizona, many years later, awarded him an honorary high school diploma.

After a short time performing on the stage, Quinn launched his film career performing character roles in the 1936 films Parole (his debut) and The Milky Way. He played "ethnic" villains in Paramount films such as Dangerous to Know (1938) and Road to Morocco. By 1947, he had appeared in over 50 films and had played Indians, Mafia dons, Hawaiian chiefs, Filipino freedom-fighters, Chinese guerrillas, and Arab sheiks, but was still not a major star. He returned to the theater, even playing Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire on Broadway.

In 1947, he became a naturalized citizen of the United States. He came back to Hollywood in the early 1950s, specializing in tough roles. He was cast in a series of B-adventures such as Mask of the Avenger (1951). His big break came from playing opposite Marlon Brando in Elia Kazan's Viva Zapata! (1952). His supporting role as Zapata's brother won Quinn an Oscar. He was the first Mexican-American to win any Academy Award. He appeared in several Italian films starting in 1953, turning in one of his best performances as a dim-witted, thuggish and volatile strongman in Federico Fellini's La strada (1954) opposite Giulietta Masina. Quinn won his second Oscar for Best Supporting Actor by portraying the painter Gauguin in Vincente Minnelli's Van Gogh biopic, Lust for Life (1956). The award was remarkable as he was onscreen for only 8 minutes. The following year, he received a Oscar nomination for his part in George Cukor's Wild Is the Wind. In The River's Edge (1957), he played the husband of the former girlfriend (played by Debra Paget) of a killer (Ray Milland), who turns up with a stolen fortune and forces Quinn and Paget at gunpoint to guide him safely to Mexico. Quinn starred in The Savage Innocents 1959 (film) as Inuk, an Eskimo who finds himself caught between two clashing cultures.

As the decade ended, Quinn allowed his age to show and began his transformation into a major character actor. His physique filled out, his hair grayed, and his once smooth, swarthy face weathered and became more rugged. His demeanor made him a convincing Greek resistance fighter in The Guns of Navarone (1961), an ideal ex-boxer in Requiem for a Heavyweight, and a natural for the role of Auda ibu Tayi in Lawrence of Arabia (both 1962). That year he also played the title role in Barabbas, based on a novel by Pär Lagerkvist. The success of Zorba the Greek in 1964 was the high water mark of his career and resulted in another Oscar nomination. Other successes include La Vingt-cinquième heure (1967, The Twenty Fifth Hour), with Virna Lisi; The Magus (1968), with Michael Caine and Candice Bergen, and based on the novel by John Fowles; and The Shoes of the Fisherman, where he played a Russian pope. In 1969, he starred in The Secret of Santa Vittoria with Anna Magnani.

He appeared on Broadway to great acclaim in Becket, as King Henry II to Laurence Olivier's Thomas Becket in 1960. An erroneous story arose in later years that during the run, Quinn and Olivier switched roles and Quinn played Becket to Olivier's King. In fact, Quinn left the production for a film, never having played Becket, and director Peter Glenville suggested a road tour with Olivier as Henry. Olivier happily acceded and Arthur Kennedy took on the role of Becket for the tour and brief return to Broadway.

In 1971, after the success of a TV movie named The City, where Quinn played Albuquerque Mayor Thomas Jefferson Alcala, he starred in the short-lived (1-season) television drama spin-off The Man in the City. His subsequent television appearances were sporadic (among them Jesus of Nazareth).

In 1977, He starred in the movie Mohammad, Messenger of God (also known as The Message), about the origin of Islam, as Hamzah, a highly revered warrior instrumental in the early stages of Islam. In 1982, he starred in the Lion of the Desert, together with Irene Papas, Oliver Reed, Rod Steiger, and John Gielgud. Quinn played the real-life Bedouin leader Omar Mukhtar who fought Benito Mussolini's Italian troops in the deserts of Libya. The film, produced and directed by Moustapha Akkad, is now critically acclaimed, but performed poorly at the box office because of negative publicity in the West at the time of its release, stemming from its having been partially funded by Libya's Muammar al-Gaddafi. In 1983, he reprised his most famous role, playing Zorba the Greek for 362 performances in a successful revival of the Kander and Ebb musical Zorba.

His film career slowed during the 1990s, but Quinn nonetheless continued to work steadily, appearing in Revenge (1990), Jungle Fever (1991), Last Action Hero (1993), and A Walk in the Clouds (1995). In 1994, he played Zeus in the five TV movies that led to the syndicated series Hercules: The Legendary Journeys. (However, he did not continue in the actual series, and the role was eventually filled by several other actors).

Early in life Quinn had interest in painting and drawing. Throughout his teenage years he won various art competitions in California and focused his studies at Polytechnic High School in Los Angeles on drafting. Later, Quinn studied briefly under Frank Lloyd Wright through the Taliesin Fellowship—an opportunity created by winning first prize in an architectural design contest. Through Wright's recommendation, Quinn took acting lessons as a form of post-operative speech therapy, which led to an acting career that spanned over six decades.

Apart from art classes taken in Chicago during the 1950s, Quinn never attended art school; nonetheless, taking advantage of books, museums, and amassing a sizable collection, he managed to give himself an effective education in the language of modern art. Although Quinn remained mostly self-taught, intuitively seeking out and exploring new ideas, there is observable history in his work because he had assiduously studied the modernist masterpieces on view in the galleries of New York, Mexico City, Paris, and London. When filming on location around the world, Quinn was exposed to regional contemporary art styles exhibited at local galleries and studied art history in each area.

In an endless search for inspiration, he was influenced by his Mexican ancestry, decades of residency in Europe, and lengthy stays in Africa and the Middle East while filming in the 1970s and 1980s.

By the early 1980s, his work had caught the eyes of various gallery owners and was exhibited internationally, in New York, Los Angeles, Paris, and Mexico City. His work is now represented in both public and private collections throughout the world.

He wrote two memoirs, The Original Sin (1972) and One Man Tango (1997), a number of scripts, and a series of unpublished stories currently in the collection of his archive.

Quinn's personal life was as volatile and passionate as the characters he played in films. His first wife was the adopted daughter of Cecil B. DeMille, the actress Katherine DeMille, whom he married in 1937. The couple had five children: Christopher (born 1939), Christina (born December 1, 1941), Catalina (born November 21, 1942), Duncan (born August 4, 1945), and Valentina (born December 26, 1952). One of their sons, Christopher, age 2, drowned in the swimming pool of next-door neighbor W.C. Fields. Quinn and DeMille were divorced in 1965.

The next year, he married costume designer Iolanda Quinn (Jolanda Addolori). They had three children: Francesco (born March 22, 1962), Danny (born April 16, 1964), and Lorenzo (born May 7, 1966). The union ended in 1997, after Quinn fathered a child with his secretary, Kathy Benvin. He then married Benvin, with whom he had two children, Antonia (born July 23, 1993) and Ryan Nicholas (born July 5, 1996). Quinn and Benvin remained together until his death.

Quinn also fathered two other children with Friedel Dunbar: Sean Quinn (born February 7, 1973), a New Jersey real estate agent, Alexander Anthony Quinn (born December 30, 1976),an event producer in Los Angeles,CA .

Quinn spent his last years in Bristol, Rhode Island. He died aged 86 in Boston, Massachusetts from pneumonia and respiratory failure while suffering from throat cancer shortly after completing his role in his last film, Avenging Angelo (2002).

His funeral was held in the First Baptist Church in the College Hill section of Providence, RI; late in life, he had joined the Foursquare evangelical Christian community. He is buried in a family plot near Bristol, Rhode Island.

On January 5, 1982, the Belvedere County Public Library in East Los Angeles was renamed in honor of Anthony Quinn. The present library sits on the site of his family's former home.

There is an Anthony Quinn Bay and Beach in Rhodes, Dodecanese, Greece, just 2.7 miles (4.3 km) south of the village of Faliraki (aka Falirakion or Falirákion).

The National Council of La Raza gives the Anthony Quinn Award for excellence in motion pictures as an ALMA Award.

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Anthony Quinn (rugby league)

Anthony Quinn (born 19 January 1983 in Penrith, New South Wales) is an Australian professional rugby league player for the Melbourne Storm in the National Rugby League competition. After playing for the Newcastle Knights' feeder club Valentine-Eleebana, Quinn was called up to the NRL in 2002. Showing steady improvement over the years, Quinn was finally rewarded with a chance to play for Country in the 2006 City vs Country Origin. Due to salary cap issues, the Knights were unable to re-sign Quinn past the 2006 season. On the open market, Quinn received a three year deal with the Storm for 2007 through 2009.

Quinn capped his first year with the Melbourne Storm with a premiership win, after the Storm's victory over the Manly Sea Eagles on 30 September 2007. He took great part in the game, scoring two tries.

Quinn continued his growing tendency to step up in big matches when he made his State of Origin debut for the New South Wales Blues at ANZ Stadium in Game I of the 2008 series and scored the opening two tries.

In August, 2008, Quinn was named in the preliminary 46-man Kangaroos squad for the 2008 Rugby League World Cup.

He played in his second grand final, the 2008 NRL defeat to Manly.

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Lawrence of Arabia (film)

Lawrence of Arabia is a 1962 British epic film based on the life of T. E. Lawrence. It was directed by David Lean and produced by Austrian Sam Spiegel (through his British company, Horizon Pictures), from a script by Robert Bolt and Michael Wilson (Lean and Spiegel had recently completed the acclaimed film The Bridge on the River Kwai). The film stars Peter O'Toole in the title role. It is widely considered one of the greatest and most influential films in the history of cinema. The dramatic score by Maurice Jarre, and Super Panavision 70 cinematography by Freddie Young, are also hugely acclaimed.

The film depicts Lawrence's experiences in Arabia during World War I, in particular his attacks on Aqaba and Damascus and his involvement in the Arab National Council. Its themes include Lawrence's emotional struggles with violence in war (especially the conflicts between Arab tribes and the slaughter of the Turkish army), his personal identity, and his divided allegiance between his native Britain and its army, and his newfound comrades within the Arabian desert tribes.

The film opens with Lawrence (Peter O'Toole) as a civilian, riding his motorcycle down a narrow English country road, only to be killed when he tries to avoid a collision with a couple who are bicycling on the wrong side of the road. At his memorial service at St Paul's Cathedral, reporters try to gain insights into this remarkable, but enigmatic, man from people who knew him, with little success.

The film then flashes back to Cairo during World War I, where Lawrence is a misfit army lieutenant, notable only for his insolence and knowledge of the Bedouin. Over the objections of a sceptical General Murray (Donald Wolfit), he is sent by Mr Dryden (Claude Rains) of the Arab Bureau to assess the prospects of Prince Feisal (Alec Guinness) in his revolt against the Turks.

On the journey, his Bedouin guide is killed by Sherif Ali (Omar Sharif) for drinking from a well without permission. Near Feisal's camp, he encounters his superior officer, Colonel Brighton (Anthony Quayle), who orders him to keep quiet, make his assessment, and then leave. He promptly ignores these commands when he meets Feisal. His fine intellect and outspokenness pique the prince's interest.

Brighton advises the Arab leader to retreat after a major defeat, but Lawrence proposes an alternative, an attack on Aqaba. If taken, the town would provide a port from which the British could offload much-needed supplies for the rebellion, but it is strongly defended against a naval assault. However, Lawrence proposes an unexpected attack on the lightly-defended landward side. He convinces Feisal to provide fifty men on camels, led by Sherif Ali. As they prepare to leave, two teenage orphan boys, Daud (John Dimech) and Farraj (Michel Ray), attach themselves to Lawrence as his servants. They cross the Nefud Desert, considered impassable even by the Bedouins, travelling day and night on the last stage to reach water. Gasim (I. S. Johar) succumbs to fatigue and falls off his camel unnoticed during the night. The rest make it to an oasis, but Lawrence turns back for the lost man alone, risking his own life. When he rescues Gasim, the Bedouin are very impressed, even the formerly sceptical Sherif Ali.

Having crossed the desert, Lawrence meets with Auda abu Tayi (Anthony Quinn), the leader of the powerful local Howeitat tribe, and convinces him to turn against the Turks. Lawrence's plans are almost derailed when one of Ali's men kills one of Auda's because of a blood feud. Since no Howeitat can retaliate without angering Ali's followers and sparking further bloodshed, Lawrence declares that he will execute the murderer himself. He is stunned to discover that the culprit is Gasim, the man whose life he had saved, but he shoots him regardless. The intact alliance then sweeps into Aqaba and captures it in a surprise attack. Auda is dismayed that the captured Turkish funds are in the form of paper notes, not gold as Lawrence had claimed.

Lawrence heads to Cairo to inform Dryden and the new commanding general, General Allenby (Jack Hawkins), of his victory. During the crossing of the Sinai Desert, Daud dies when he stumbles into quicksand. Lawrence is promoted two ranks to major and given arms and money to support the Arabs. He asks Allenby whether the Arabs' suspicions that the British have designs on Arabia after the Turks are driven out have any basis; the general says at first that he's not a politician, then when pressed, that they don't.

Lawrence launches a guerrilla war, blowing up trains and harassing the Turks at every turn. American war correspondent Jackson Bentley (Arthur Kennedy) makes him world famous by publicising his exploits. With winter approaching, many of the tribesmen go home for the year, leaving fewer and fewer die-hard supporters to continue fighting. On one raid, Farraj is badly injured when the detonator he is carrying blows up prematurely. Unwilling to leave him for the Turks to torture, Lawrence is forced to shoot him before fleeing.

Down to twenty men, he scouts the enemy-held city of Daraa with Ali, but is taken, along with several Arab residents, to the Turkish Bey (Jose Ferrer). For striking the Bey after he is lasciviously stripped, ogled and prodded, Lawrence is severely beaten and then thrown out into the street. Though the matter is controversial, historians and biographers (including Lawrence's authorised biographer, Jeremy Wilson) say that the rape implied by Seven Pillars of Wisdom and other sources is also implied in the film. Traumatised by the experience, Lawrence abandons the fight and makes a futile attempt to return to ordinary life.

In Jerusalem, Allenby urges him to go back to the fighting to support his "big push" on Damascus, but Lawrence is a changed, tormented man and, at first, does not want to return. Lawrence relents and recruits an army, including many killers and cutthroats motivated by money, rather than the Arab cause. They come upon a column of retreating Turkish soldiers, who have just slaughtered the inhabitants of the village of Tafas. One of Lawrence's men is from the village and, after seeing the carnage, he demands, "No prisoners!" When Lawrence hesitates, the man charges the Turks by himself and is killed. Lawrence takes up the dead man's cry, "No prisoners!" - resulting in a massacre. Lawrence's men then enter Damascus before Allenby.

The Arabs set up a council to administer the city, but they are tribesmen, not a nation. Unable to maintain the electricity, telephones, and waterworks, and clashing constantly with each other, they soon abandon most of Damascus to the British. Lawrence is promoted to colonel and then immediately relieved of his command and sent home, his usefulness at an end. The negotiations are left to Feisal and the British and French diplomats. A dejected Lawrence is driven away in a staff car.

Various members of the film's crew portrayed minor characters. First assistant director Roy Stevens played the truck driver who transports Lawrence and Farraj to the Cairo HQ at the end of Act I; the Sergeant who stops Lawrence and Farraj ("Where do you think you're going to, Mustapha?") is construction assistant, Fred Bennett; and screenwriter Robert Bolt has a wordless cameo as one of the officers watching Allenby and Lawrence confer in the courtyard (he is smoking a pipe).

It has been noted that the film is unusual in that it had no women in credited speaking roles.

Sherif Ali - A combination of numerous Arab leaders, particularly Sherif Nassir — Feisal's cousin — who led the Harith forces involved in the attack on Aqaba. The character was created largely because Lawrence did not serve with any one Arab leader (aside from Auda) throughout the majority of the war; most such leaders were amalgamated in Ali's character. This character was, however, almost certainly named after Sherif Ali ibn Hussein, a young leader in the Harith tribe, though that Ali played a very small part in the Revolt.

Turkish Bey - The Turkish Bey who captures Lawrence in Daraa was — according to Lawrence himself — General Hajim Bey (in Turkish, Hacim Muhiddin Bey), though he is not named in the film. Though the incident was mentioned in Lawrence's autobiography Seven Pillars of Wisdom, a few historians have conjectured that this event never happened. This is not the view of Jeremy Wilson, The Authorised Biography of T. E. Lawrence (ISBN 0-689-11934-8) or the author of the Pulitzer Prize winning biography A Prince of Our Disorder, John E. Mack, (ISBN 0-316-54232-6).

Jackson Bentley - Based on famed American journalist Lowell Thomas, who did help make Lawrence famous with accounts of his bravery. However, Thomas was at the time a young man who spent only a few days (or weeks at most) with Lawrence in the field unlike Bentley, who is depicted as a cynical middle-aged Chicago newspaperman who is present during the whole of Lawrence's later campaigns. Bentley was the narrator in Michael Wilson's original script, but Robert Bolt reduced his role significantly for the final script. It should also be stated that Thomas did not start reporting on Lawrence until after the end of World War I, and genuinely held Lawrence in high regard, unlike Bentley, who seems to hold him in contempt.

The historical accuracy of the film, and particularly its portrayal of Lawrence himself, has been called into question by numerous scholars. Most of the film's characters are either real or based on real characters to varying degrees. The events depicted in the film are largely based on accepted historical fact and Lawrence's own writing about events, though they have various degrees of romanticisation.

Some scenes — such as the attack on Aqaba — were heavily fictionalised, while those dealing with the Arab Council were inaccurate, in as much as the council remained more or less in power in Syria until France deposed Feisal in 1920. The theme (in the second half of the film) that Lawrence's Arab army deserted almost to a man as he moved further north was completely fictional. The film's timeline of the Arab Revolt and World War I, and the geography of the Hedjaz region, are frequently questionable. For instance, Bentley interviews Feisal in late 1917, after the fall of Aqaba, saying the United States has not yet entered the war; yet America had been in the war for several months by that point in time. Further, Lawrence's involvement in the Arab Revolt prior to the attack on Aqaba — such as his involvement in the seizures of Yenbo and Wejh — is completely excised. The rescue and execution of Gasim is based on two separate incidents which were conflated together for dramatic reasons.

Many complaints about the film's accuracy, however, centre on the characterisation of Lawrence himself. The perceived problems with the portrayal of Lawrence begin with the differences in his physical appearance: 6-foot 2-inch Peter O'Toole was almost nine inches taller than the real Lawrence. His behaviour, however, has caused much more debate.

The screenwriters depict Lawrence as an egotist. The degree to which Lawrence sought or shunned attention, for example his use after the war of various assumed names, is a matter of debate. Even during the war, Lowell Thomas wrote in With Lawrence in Arabia that he could only take pictures of him by tricking him (though he did later agree to pose for several pictures for Thomas's stage show). Thomas's famous comment that Lawrence "had a genius for backing into the limelight" referred to the fact that his extraordinary actions prevented him from being as private as he would have liked. Others disagree, pointing to Lawrence's own writings in Seven Pillars of Wisdom to support the argument that he was egotistical.

Lawrence was aware of the Sykes-Picot Agreement,contrary to the film, but he hoped that the Arabs' contribution to the Allied victory would convince the Allies to grant the Arabs their independence. Lawrence was, as the film suggests, torn between loyalty to the British and his promises to the Arabs, but by omitting his knowledge of the Sykes-Picot Agreement, the film removes the catalyst for this conflict.

The film's portrayal of General Allenby as a cynical, manipulative superior is not entirely accurate either. Allenby and Lawrence respected and liked each other; Lawrence once said of Allenby that he was "an admiration of mine", and later that " physically large and confident, and morally so great that the comprehension of our littleness came slow to him". Allenby, for his part, remarked upon Lawrence's death that "I have lost a good friend and a valued comrade. Lawrence was under my command, but, after acquainting him with my strategical plan, I gave him a free hand. His co-operation was marked by the utmost loyalty, and I never had anything but praise for his work which, indeed, was invaluable throughout the campaign," (in contrast to the fictional Allenby's words at Lawrence's funeral in the film) and spoke highly of him on numerous other occasions. It seems likely that this characterisation of Allenby is in large part due to the screenwriters' anti-war sentiments. While Allenby admittedly did manipulate Lawrence during the war, their relationship lasted for years after its end, indicating that, in real-life, they were friendly, if not terribly close. Similarly, General Murray, though initially sceptical of the Arab Revolt's potential, thought highly of Lawrence's abilities as an intelligence officer; the intense dislike shown towards Lawrence in the film is in fact the opposite of Murray's real feelings.

The depiction of Auda abu Tayi as a man only interested in loot and money is also at odds with the historical record. While Auda did at first join the Arab Revolt for monetary reasons, he quickly became a steadfast supporter of Arab independence and only abandoned the cause after the collapse of the Arab government in Damascus. He was present with Lawrence from the beginning of the Aqaba expedition, and in fact helped plan it along with Feisal I of Iraq.

Feisal, far from being the middle-aged man depicted, was in reality in his early thirties at the time of the revolt. While Feisal was considered by Lawrence to be a wise and insightful man, he also had a nasty sense of humour (often involving practical jokes) which is not evident in the film.

A particularly telling fact of the film's inaccuracies are the reaction of those who knew Lawrence and the other characters. The most vehement critic of the film's inaccuracy was Professor A.W. Lawrence, T.E.'s younger brother and literary executor who had given the rights to Seven Pillars of Wisdom to Sam Spiegel for ƒ25,000. Lawrence went on a campaign in the US and Britain denouncing the film, famously saying that "I should not have recognised my own brother". Lowell Thomas was also critical of the portrayal of Lawrence and most of the film's characters, feeling that the train attack scenes were the only reasonably accurate aspect of the film.

The criticisms were not restricted to Lawrence. The Allenby family lodged a formal complaint against Columbia about the portrayal of their ancestor. Descendants of Auda abu Tayi and the real Sherif Ali (despite the fact that the film's Ali was fictional) went further, actively suing Columbia due to the portrayal of their ancestors. The Auda case went on for almost ten years before it was finally dropped.

Previous films about T. E. Lawrence had been planned but had not been made. In the 1940s, Alexander Korda was interested in filming The Seven Pillars of Wisdom with Laurence Olivier as Lawrence, but had to pull out due to financial difficulties. Besides previous attempts, Terrence Rattigan was developing his play Ross, centred primarily on Lawrence's alleged homosexuality simultaneous to pre-production to this film, with Sam Spiegel growing furious and unsuccessfully attempting to have the play suppressed. (Ironically, the furore surrounding the play helped gain publicity for the film.) When Lawrence of Arabia was first announced, Lawrence's biographer Lowell Thomas offered producer Spiegel and screenwriters Bolt and Wilson a large amount of research material he had produced on Lawrence during and after his time with him in the Arab Revolt. Spiegel rejected the offer.

Michael Wilson wrote the original draft of the screenplay. However, David Lean was dissatisfied with Wilson's work, primarily because his treatment focused primarily on the historical and political aspects of the Arab Revolt. Lean hired Robert Bolt to re-write the script in order to make it a character study of Lawrence himself. While many (if not most) of the characters and scenes are Wilson's invention, virtually all of the dialogue in the finished film was written by Bolt.

Lean reportedly watched John Ford's film The Searchers (1956) to help him develop ideas as to how to shoot the film. Several scenes in the movie directly recall Ford's film, most notably Ali's entrance at the well and the composition of many of the desert scenes, most notably the exit from Wadi Rum. Lean biographer Kevin Brownlow even notes the physical similarity between Rumm and Ford's Monument Valley.

The film was made by Horizon Pictures and Columbia Pictures. Shooting began on May 15, 1961 and ended on October 20, 1962.

The desert scenes were shot in Jordan and Morocco, as well as Almería and Doñana in Spain. The film was originally to be filmed entirely in Jordan: the government of King Hussein was extremely helpful in providing logistical assistance, location scouting, transportation, and extras. During the production of the film, in fact, Hussein met and married Toni Gardner, who was working as a switchboard operator in Aqaba. One of the film's technical advisors/horse wranglers in Jordan was a descendant of Auda abu Tayi. The only tension occurred when local Jordanian officials learned that English actor Henry Oscar, who did not speak Arabic, would be filmed reciting the Qur'an; permission was granted only on condition that an imam be present to ensure that there were no misquotations.

In Jordan, Lean planned to film in, among other places, the real Aqaba and the archaeological site at Petra, which Lawrence had been fond of as a place of study. However, the production had to be moved to Spain, much to Lean's regret, due to cost and outbreaks of illness among the cast and crew before these scenes could be shot. The attack on Aqaba (one of the more stirring and memorable scenes in the movie with a spectacular pan shot of dust rising up from behind the charging Arabs while Turkish cannons are aimed harmlessly out to sea) was reconstructed in a dried river bed in southern Spain; it consisted of over 300 buildings and was meticulously based on the town's appearance in 1917. The execution of Gasim and the train attacks were filmed in the Almeria region, with the former's filming being delayed because of a flash flood. The city of Seville was also used to represent Cairo and Jerusalem, with the appearance of the Alcázar of Seville and the Plaza de España. All of the film's interiors were shot in Spain, including Lawrence's first meeting with Feisal and the scene in Auda's tent.

The Tafas massacre was filmed in Ouarzazate, Morocco, with Moroccan army troops substituting for the Turkish army; however, Lean was unable to film as much as he wanted because the soldiers were uncooperative and impatient. One of the second-unit directors for the Morocco scenes was Andre de Toth, who suggested a shot wherein bags of blood would be machine-gunned, spraying the screen with blood. Assistant director Nicholas Roeg approached Lean with this idea, but Lean found it disgusting. De Toth subsequently left the project.

The film's production was frequently delayed because, unusually, the film started shooting without a finished script. After Wilson quit early in the production, Bolt took over, with playwright Beverley Cross working on the script in the interim (although none of his material made it to the final film). A further mishap occurred when Bolt was arrested for taking part in an anti-nuclear weapons demonstration, and Spiegel had to persuade Bolt to sign a recognizance of good behaviour for him to be released from jail and continue working on the script.

Camels caused several problems on set. O'Toole was not used to riding camels and found the saddle to be uncomfortable. While in Amman during a break in filming, he bought a piece of foam rubber at a market and added it to his saddle. Many of the extras copied the idea and sheets of the foam can be seen on many of the horse and camel saddles. The Bedouins nicknamed O'Toole "Ab al Isfanjah" (أب الإسفنجة), meaning "Father of the Sponge". The idea spread and to this day, many Bedouins add foam rubber to their saddles.

Later, during the filming of the Aqaba scene, O'Toole was nearly killed when he fell from his camel, but fortunately, it stood over him, preventing the horses of the extras from trampling him. (A very similar mishap befell the real Lawrence at the Battle of Abu El Lissal in 1917.) In another mishap, O'Toole seriously injured his hand during filming by punching through the window of a caravan. A brace or bandage can be seen on his left thumb during the first train attack scene, presumably due to this incident.

The score, composed by Maurice Jarre, was performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Although Sir Adrian Boult is credited as the conductor of the score in the film's credits, he was unable to conduct most of the score, due in part to his failure to adapt to the intricate timings of each cue. Maurice Jarre replaced him as the conductor, and he is so credited on the original soundtrack recording, which was originally released on Colpix Records, the records division of Columbia Pictures, in 1962. A remastered edition appeared on Castle Music, a division of the Sanctuary Records Group, on August 28, 2006.

Kenneth Alford's march The Voice of the Guns (1917) is prominently featured on the soundtrack. One of Alford's other pieces, the Colonel Bogey March, was the theme song for Lean's previous film, Bridge on the River Kwai.

The film premiered in London on December 10, 1962, and was released in the United States on December 16, 1962.

The original release ran for 222 minutes (plus overture, intermission, and exit music). A later theatrical re-release ran for 202 minutes; an even shorter cut of 187 minutes briefly surfaced in the 1970s. The first round of cuts was made at the direction and even insistence of David Lean, to assuage criticisms of the film's length and increase the number of showings per day; however, during the 1989 restoration, he would later pass blame for the cuts onto then-deceased producer Sam Spiegel.

The current "restored version", undertaken by Robert A. Harris and James C. Katz (under the supervision of director David Lean), was released in 1989 with a 216-minute length (plus overture, intermission, and exit music).

Most of the cut scenes were dialogue sequences, particularly those involving General Allenby and his staff. Two whole scenes—Brighton's briefing of Allenby in Jerusalem before the Daraa scene and the British staff meeting in the field tent—were completely excised, and the former has still not been entirely restored. Much of the missing dialogue involves Lawrence's writing of poetry and verse, alluded to by Allenby in particular, saying "the last poetry general we had was Wellington". The opening of Act II, where Feisal is interviewed by Bentley, and the later scene, in Jerusalem where Allenby convinces Lawrence not to resign, existed in only fragmented form; they were restored to the 1989 re-release. Some of the more graphic shots of the Tafas massacre scene—the lengthy panning shot of the corpses in Tafas, and Lawrence shooting a surrendering Turkish soldier—were also restored. Most of the still-missing footage is of minimal import, supplementing existing scenes. One scene is an extended version of the Daraa rape sequence, which makes Lawrence's punishment in that scene more overt. Other scripted scenes exist, most notably a conversation between Auda and Lawrence immediately after the fall of Aqaba, but these scenes were probably not filmed. The actors still living at the time of the re-release dubbed their own dialogue, though Jack Hawkins's dialogue had to be dubbed by Charles Gray (who had already done Hawkins' voice for several films after the former developed throat cancer in the late 1960s). A full list of cuts can be found at the Internet Movie Database. Reasons for the cuts of various scenes can be found in Lean's notes to Sam Spiegel, Robert Bolt, and Anne V. Coates. The film runs 216 minutes in the most recent director's cut available on DVD.

The HD premiere was telecast on HDNet on February 10, 2008. Sony remastered the film into HD. In its high definition version, the film is 216 minutes. Sony lists it at 227 minutes.

Upon its original release, Lawrence was a huge critical and financial success, and it remains very popular with the public and critics alike to this day. While some critics — notably Bosley Crowther and Andrew Sarris — criticised the film for its allegedly indefinite portrayal of Lawrence and lack of depth, most critics praised the film - in particular O'Toole's performance, the striking visuals, dramatic music and literate screenplay. Currently, it is widely considered one of the greatest and most influential films ever made. Its visual style has influenced many directors, including Steven Spielberg, who described the film as "a miracle", George Lucas, Sam Peckinpah, and Martin Scorsese. Its influence upon filmmaking and popular culture has been called "undeniable".

It is today regarded as a masterpiece of world cinema and is often featured highly on critical lists of best films. It was rated the fifth greatest American film of all time by the American Film Institute in 1997 (a thoughtful but puzzling accolade, given the film is entirely British-made and -financed); in its 2007 Tenth Anniversary Edition list, the film dropped to seventh. In the 2008 AFI's 10 Top 10, it was ranked as the greatest epic film. In 1991, this film was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. In 1999 it came 3rd in a BFI poll of British films, while in 2004 the magazine Total Film named it the 8th greatest British film of all time. In a Sight and Sound poll, it came in the top ten Best Films of all time as voted by directors. O'Toole's performance has also often been considered one of the greatest of all time, topping lists made by both Entertainment Weekly and Premiere.

The film was nominated for ten Academy Awards in 1962, and won seven, including Best Picture.

The use of the locations in Almería, Spain for the train sequences and others made that region popular with international film makers. Most famously, it became the setting of virtually all of the Spaghetti Westerns of the '60s and '70s, specifically those of Sergio Leone. (The oasis set from Lawrence briefly appears in Leone's For a Few Dollars More (1965).) Many of the sets used or built in the film later resurfaced in later movies, including John Milius's The Wind and the Lion (1975), which used several of the same palaces in Seville and the Aqaba set as the setting for its climactic battle, while the Plaza de España appears in Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002), as the Theed Palace.

The chorus in the main music theme is identical to the one used in the 2004 film Troy in which Peter O'Toole also appears.

The main musical title of the film was used in the James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) in the scene where Roger Moore and Barbara Bach's characters wander through the desert after their car breaks down. This was done as a joke by one of the editors who liked to play music from the film during the daily rushes.

Film director Steven Spielberg considers this his favorite movie of all time, and the one which convinced him to become a film maker. Screenwriter William Monahan, who scripted Kingdom of Heaven and The Departed, among others, is a fan of Robert Bolt and has stated on numerous occasions that viewing Lawrence is what inspired him to be a screenwriter.

In 1990, a made-for-television film, A Dangerous Man: Lawrence After Arabia, was produced as a sequel to the film. It featured Ralph Fiennes as Lawrence and Alexander Siddig as Prince Feisal. The movie dealt primarily with the attempts of Lawrence and Feisal to secure independence for Arabia during the 1919 Versailles Conference following the end of World War I. The movie was generally well-received and deals more with the political ramifications of Lawrence's efforts in the Middle East.

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Neville Quinn

Neville Anthony Quinn (21 February 1908 in Tweefontein, South Africa - 5 August 1934 in Kenilworth, South Africa) was a cricketer, and brother of Michael, who played first-class cricket for Rhodesia.

Quinn played first-class cricket for Griqualand West and Transvaal, and played 12 Test matches for South Africa. Principally a bowler, he made his Test debut on the tour to England in 1929. He found the bowling conditions of a dry English summer suited his swing bowling, and played in four of the five Tests. He took 6-92 in England's first innings in the 3rd Test at Headingley, the only 5-wicket haul in his short Test career, and came second in the tourists' bowling averages behind Tuppy Owen-Smith.

Quinn played in one Test of the series at home against England in 1930-31, the drawn 3rd Test at Durban which was dominated by the English bowlers, and then toured to Australia and New Zealand in 1931-32, also finishing second in the tourists' bowling averages, this time behind Sandy Bell. It is said that Donald Bradman rated him highly: he dismissed the great Australian batsman for only 2 in the 3rd Test in Melbourne, the only time that Bradman was out for less than 100 in that series.

The matches on the Australasian tour proved to his last Test cricket. He died suddenly at the age of 26 near Kimberley.

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Lorenzo Quinn

Lorenzo Quinn (May 7, 1966) is an Italian artist and sculptor and son of the actor Anthony Quinn.

Quinn was born in Rome, Italy and is the son of the Mexican American actor Anthony Quinn. Quinn was raised between the United States and Italy and presently lives in Barcelona, Spain. It was in Rome where he discovered his love for art and started out as a painter in 1982, training at the American Academy of Fine Arts in New York.

Quinn was attracted to acting where he interpreted roles such as Antonio Stradivari as the young violin maker with his father Anthony Quinn playing the elder. Quinn, having started painting, had always been an admirer of the surrealist artist Salvador Dalì and in 1988 he interpreted the Catalonian artist on the big screen. Quinn achieved the best new actor award at the Biarritz Film Festival. However, it was by working in this role that Quinn decided his own career needed a change of direction and so he phased out acting to dedicate himself solely to art.

Quinn's sculpture is inspired by the great figurative masters, Michelangelo, Bernini, Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux and Auguste Rodin. Each sculpture is first born in writing, whether it be Lorenzo's poetry or other literature. The image concept is then drafted on paper and then a smaller model is created.

By the age of 21 he gained the respect of the New York art community when he was commissioned to make an art work for the United Nations of which a stamp was later made. Quinn was later selected to head the Absolut Vodka ad campaign for which only top international artists are chosen.

Shortly after, in 1994, Quinn was commissioned by the Vatican to create a sculpture of Saint Anthony. The sculpture was blessed by the Pope in Saint Peter's square in front of 35,000 people, and later placed in the Basilica del Santo in Padua, Italy, commemorating the eighth centennial of the saint's death.

On March 5th 2002, the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation announced a competition, in which the jury would select a design for a memorial that would pay respect to all those died in the World Trade Center attack. The LMDC received an enormous outpouring of ideas from across the globe with 13,683 registrants and 5,201 Memorial submissions from 63 nations.

The design 'Reflecting Abscence' by Michael Arad and Peter Walker was chosen as the winner.

His ongoing project, ‘The Globe Of Life’ which represents the hundred most important moments in history, looks set to be his most significant work to date, with five monumental bronze sculptures linking each continent.

Each one represents in relief an important moment in history, to be precise, the one hundred most important moments in history. These moments cover all biological, cultural and technological aspects (i.e. the Big-Bang, the augmentation of the brain mass, the control of fire, the discovery of the wheel, the printing press, religion, the micro-chip, etc.).

The Globe's interior is conditioned to host an interactive exhibition. The visitor will experience a virtual reality show: three-dimensional holographic images will explain our passage through time. The reality show will be based on the reasons for choosing the one hundred moments and their respective importance for the Human Evolution. The public will also be able to connect in real time with the other copies of the Globe, one for each Continent.

The sculpture "The Globe of Life" has been conceived with the objective of uniting all peoples in the world through a better understanding of our common past. Thus, in example, when it refers to the subject of religion it represents it as the search for faith - an aspect shared by all religions -, without withholding itself on any religious doctrine in particular.

Quinn has exhibited his works in galleries and museums around the globe. In February 2008, Halcyon Gallery in London inaugurated their new five-story contemporary gallery with his work. For the show, Quinn created many new art works including the controversial sculpture Statistics initially in response to the Iraq war. The work represents the extensive loss of life in war and how people are numbed by the figures of death reported by the daily newspapers.

Among other commissions, for the people of Birmingham, Quinn created the sculpture Tree of Life representing those that had perished in the Birmingham air raids in World War II .

He has also worked on commissions for the Sports Academy ASPIRE in the Gulf states, one of the world's largest, and many in Spain where he currently lives with his wife and children.

Lorenzo has also created the monumental sculpture Encounters, commissioned by Fundatur and donated to the city of Mallorca in 2003. It is now situated opposite the Museum of Modern art in Palma de Mallorca.

Pushing the boundaries of his practice, Quinn created a "living sculpture" in the city of Sant Climent de Llobregat in Barcelona.

He also has a permanent exhibition at the Rafart Gallery in Almenar, Spain.

Quinn supports many charities. Proceeds from the sale of his sculpture Friendship Fish went to environmental causes. He has also been a patron for many charities and was a Young Artists Patron for Unesco. He donated the sculpture Hope to the Blind Museum (Museo Tiflológico) in Madrid, Spain. He also designed the "Children In Need" award which was awarded to Heather Mills and Phil Collins in 2005.

Quinn also co-owns an Italian Restaurant Galeria Gastronomica situated in Barcelona, which is also the setting for many of his sculptures. Most of the restaurant's hardware items such as the cutlery were designed by him.

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Lion of the Desert

Lion of the Desert is a 1981 Libyan historical action film starring Anthony Quinn as Libyan tribal leader Omar Mukhtar fighting the Italian army in the years leading up to World War II. It was directed by Moustapha Akkad and funded by Muammar al-Gaddafi's government.

In 1929, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini (Rod Steiger) is still faced with the 20-year long war waged by patriots in Libya to combat Italian colonization and the establishment of 'The Fourth Shore' - the rebirth of a Roman Empire in Africa. Mussolini appoints General Rodolfo Graziani (Oliver Reed) as his sixth governor to Libya, confident that the eminently accredited soldier can crush the rebellion and restore the dissipated glories of Imperial Rome.

Omar Mukhtar (Anthony Quinn) leads the resistance to the fascists. A teacher by profession, guerilla by obligation, Mukhtar has committed himself to a war that cannot be won in his own lifetime. Graziani controls North Africa with the might of the Italian Army. Tanks and airplanes are used in the desert for the first time. Despite their bravery, the Libyan Arabs and Berbers suffered heavy losses, their primitive weaponry no match for mechanised warfare; despite all this, they continued the fight, and managed to keep the Italians from achieving complete victory for 20 years.

Although Mukhtar and his fellow warriors used primitive weaponry, Graziani admitted and witnessed his adversary's skill in waging guerilla warfare. In one scene, Mukhtar refuses to kill a defenseless young officer, instead giving him the Italian flag to return with. Mukhtar says that Islam forbids him to kill captured soldiers and demands that he only fight for his homeland, and that Muslims are taught to hate war itself.

Italian authorities banned and censored the film in 1982, claiming that it was "damaging to the Italian Army's honour". The last act of the government intervention against the film was on April 7, 1987, in Trento; afterward, MPs from Democrazia Proletaria asked Parliament to show the movies at the Chamber of Deputies.

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