The Original Sin : A Self-Portrait [Hardcover]

Anthony Quinn (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: 1972

Original Sin, The: A Self-Portrait by Quinn, Anthony

Product Details

• Hardcover: 311 pages
• Publisher: Little, Brown; 1st edition (1972)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316728985
• ISBN-13: 978-0316728980
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #372,538 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Quinn Was Haunted By Ghosts, July 26, 2008

By 

James R. Holland "Author of Boston's Notable ... (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews
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Anthony Quinn was a great actor as well as an excellent visual artist, writer and not very good professional boxer in his youth. He had his problems, most of which were psychological. He didn't believe in death and was haunted by ghosts throughout his long life. He even carried on conversations with those ghosts. His most frequent ghostly visitor was "Boy" who was the embodiment of his own youth. He argued constantly with "Boy" about whether he had achieved his true purpose in life. The "Boy" kept Anthony "relativity sane" by always reminding him of the truth and mocking him when the actor/artist began to believe his own legend. Quinn was also a driven man. He spent his life seeking the perfect love of a woman; a woman for whom he would the first, last and only man in her life. Even his loving mother and grandmother both of whom literally worshipped the ground he walked upon, failed to meet Quinn's standards because of course they had both shared their love with men other than Quinn (his grandfather and father to be specific).
Quinn opens this autobiography with a lengthy session with his psychoanalyst. This is the same vehicle he uses to tie the various parts of his life story together. It's all rather depressing because of this clinical approach. Quinn had a fabulous and interesting life that started with his birth in a mud-floored hut in Mexico while his father was fighting with Poncho Villa in the Mexican Revolution. His mother had been fighting at his side on the front lines until her pregnancy had resulted in her being sent home to have her baby.
Because he grew into a famous movie star, the book is fascinating with lots of Hollywood reference points. I happened to have read Quinn's second autobiography "One Man Tango" before I discovered this one. The second autobiography is so good that I decided to read this one to see if had additional information about the actor's life. It did, but it was of a mostly depressing nature. If you only read one of Quinn's autobiographies "One Man Tango" is far better. It was written shortly before his death and the writer was a much older and wiser man. He was still haunted by his ghosts, especially "Boy" who he encountered even while taking his daylong bicycle trips around the hills of his Italian villa.
Reading this book will give the reader a peek at the great actors driving forces as well as his demons, but it will also leave the reader depressed. When I found that Quinn had written two autobiographies I thought that fact a bit odd, but it's easy to see why he did the second one. This one only scratches the surface and subsurface of his character. This volume is good for additional information, but "One Man Tango" is infinitely superior in every way, not the least of which is it was published in 1997 a year after the birth of his thirteenth child when Quinn was a senior, senior citizen (age 82), but barely willing to acknowledge it. When one realizes all the baggage Quinn was carrying it amazing he was able to accomplish anything. Quinn was a true larger-than-life Mexican-American success story and he wouldn't let you forget that fact. He was tireless in his 86-year search for the perfect love of a woman, and his search involved bedding the most beautiful women in Hollywood and the rest of the world. He wanted to make love to and impregnate every woman in the world. He was a vigorous, randy man with an unquenchable thirst and a posse of real ghosts. A good read, but there are better ones. Quinn believed "the inability to accept love is 'the original sin', sadder than all others." He believed that in life and art he had to keep moving forward or he would surely die and join the members of his ghostly entourage without ever having found or accepted true love.

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars unusual life incorporating nice studio tales, March 18, 1999

By 

[e-mail] (Southampton, UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Original Sin : A Self-Portrait (Hardcover)

Quinn isn't an actor you think of first when you think of Hollywood. But his trip from Mexico, emotional development and gambles with legends of the studio system make for entertaining reading.

Nice anecdotes and insights into the minds and egos of some of the great names of yesteryear.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars too indulgent to be of use, December 11, 2009

By 

Miguel Delgadillo "Chicano Nationalist" (san jose, CA United States) - See all my reviews

I undderstand as an autobiography one gets to write it their way but this goes too far. This is a several hundred page sobfest from someone who didn't seem to suffer much.
Quinn grew in poverty, yes like so many others, but it's apparent what he was starved for was spiritual attention and guidance, like so many others. Reading his life story as a youth you see a fellow who has too much energy then wastes it craving happiness. Growing up in the 1920's Hollywoood was this big dream machine that did actually take in young talent and gave them a chance. Regardless of their skin color Hollywood was indeed a supficial lover who did deliver the goods to those lucky enough to be talented and in the right place.
Quinn had the inner turmoil to act, and let that turmoil bubble out. But Quinn's downfall was that as great and powerful actor he may have been, he was a terribly weak man. He had it rough for sure, dealing w/ a flamboyant uncle and a father who died too early for the son to ever eclipse, butinstead of seeing the impediment to his success removed or the rival now gone, he saw this as a ghost he could not defeat and who might revive and destroy him.
His life and the book had far too much tawdry sex, I just don't care about anyone's first sexual experiences; and much of what he describes would today be classified as sexual abuse. Perhaps these segments added to his sense of shame and that kept the inner turmoil going.
Anthony Quinn tells of having to choose between joining the white kids to fight the Mexicans or joining the Mexicans to fight off the Whites; after it all he has beaten up himself and who was the winner?