Francesco Quinn, son of two-time Academy Award winner Anthony Quinn and Dino’s voice in Michael Bay’s Transformers: Dark of the Moon, has died. Quinn collapsed, apparently from a heart attack, while jogging with his son Max in Malibu’s La Costa neighborhood on Friday evening (Aug. 5). He was 48.
One of Mexican-born, two-time Oscar winner Anthony Quinn’s 13 children, Francesco Quinn was born in Rome on March 22, 1963. His mother was costume designer Jolanda Addolori.
An actor for 25 years, Quinn was featured in more than 30 movies. His film debut took place in Oliver Stone’s Oscar-winning Platoon (1986), in which he played the drug-dealing character Rhah. Among his other credits, usually in minor fare, were Casablanca Express (1989), Cannes Man (1996), and Man vs. Monday (2006). According to the IMDb, he has one movie coming out: Giuseppe Ferrara’s Roma nuda. Charles Leinenweber and Thadd Turner’s Buttermilk Sky was in pre-production for a possible 2012 release.
Additionally, Quinn had roles in three of his father’s films: Giacomo Battiato’s Stradivari (1988), which also featured Anthony Quinn’s sons Danny Quinn and Lorenzo Quinn; Jud Taylor’s television movie The Old Man and the Sea (1990), in which Francesco played his father as a young man; and Jim Kaufman’s A Star for Two (1993), featuring veterans Lauren Bacall, Jean-Pierre Aumont, and Zorba the Greek‘s Oscar winner Lila Kedrova.
Among Francesco Quinn’s numerous television roles were those in the soap opera The Young and the Restless, and the series The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, ZAG, CSI: Miami, and Zen. He was also featured in the recent Italian series Il Commissario Manara, starring Guido Caprino, Jane Alexander, and Massimo Andrei.
Anthony Quinn died in 2001 at the age of 86. His two Academy Awards were for Best Supporting Actor in Elia Kazan’s Viva Zapata! (1952) and Vincente Minnelli’s Lust for Life (1956). He was also nominated twice for Best Actor: George Cukor’s Wild Is the Wind (1957) and Michael Cacoyannis’ Zorba the Greek (1964). Cacoyannis died on July 25.
Francesco Quinn’s widow, actress Valentina Castellani-Quinn (Wake Up, The Crying Museum), told the Malibu Patch newspaper, “Francesco was my soulmate … I will love him forever.”
1 comment
Francesco Quinn was too young to die . Usually when you come from parents who lived till their 80s you also inherit that longevity. We will miss you F. Quinn .