Maybe you haven't heard the rumor but in general, and to put it mildly, actors are not known to be shy, retiring people. "Bombastic," "indefatigable," "relentlessly buoyant" are words often tossed around to describe them. Having watched Anthony Quinn in movies almost as long as he had been making them, I never harbored the illusion that the real A.Q. might be someone who could be described as a shrinking violet. However, nothing quite prepared me for the volcanic eruption he caused simply by entering a room when we first met back in 1999, as he arrived to do a Private Screenings interview for TCM. Wearing a big, wide smile, displaying great bravado, charm and enthusiasm, he immediately and animatedly started telling stories about his life, and people in his life, doing so with all the exuberance of someone delivering a whizbang story for the first time, although you instinctively knew these were stories that had probably been told, retold and polished for years. Welcome to the world of Anthony Quinn.

As fate would have it, our coming together that day wasn't a one-time thing. Because we had mutual friends, and Tony and his second wife Jolanda were spending considerable time during that year in New York, we got to know each other quite well. The more I was around Tony Q., the more I liked him. He seemed to know and understand the world better than anyone I'd ever met. We eventually did some traveling together, to promote TCM in the channel's early days, and the amazing thing is that I don't recall him ever repeating one of those endless stories he'd tell--that stockpile of material coming from the fact that he'd worked on film or on stage with everyone from Brando, Bergman, Olivier and Magnani to Fellini, Kazan, and Keanu Reeves. He also studied architecture in Arizona with Frank Lloyd Wright. He made films in every corner of the world. He suffered from being Mexican-born at a time Hollywood was only interested in non-ethnic types. He also had a damaging love-hate relationship with his father-in-law, Hollywood's powerful Cecil B. DeMille, who never fully welcomed into the family circle this "supporting player" best known for playing Arab chieftains, Indian warlords, sneering gangsters, bullfighters and oily gigolos.

But I also came to discover something much more important: the real Tony Quinn was a far cry from the human tsunami I originally judged him to be. He was an artist, totally committed to doing the best work possible, whether acting a role, painting a picture, writing a poem or hosting a gathering of friends. The verdict: it made him an even more fascinating fellow. As for his career, what eventually changed things so remarkably for Quinn was basically five things: the sensation he caused when he played the Brando role in the Chicago stage run of A Streetcar Named Desire; also, his work in a surprisingly fine B-budget film in 1947 called Black Gold, which proved he could easily carry a movie, any movie, on his shoulders alone; 1952's Viva Zapata!, which brought Quinn the first of his two Academy Awards and raised his status further; Fellini's 1954 La Strada, which made Tony a true international star; and 1964's Zorba the Greek, which made him an icon.

In honor of this month's anniversary of his 100th birthday, we'll be showing all five of those landmark films of Quinn this month along with other samplings of his eclectic career. It's our way of saying Happy 100th to a most remarkable fellow.

by Robert Osborne