Kathy Benvin is Anthony Quinn’s widow and the founder and president of the Anthony Quinn Foundation. She met the Oscar-winning actor in 1985 and worked closely with his creative life for years. She later became the mother of his two youngest children, Antonia and Ryan. After Quinn’s death in 2001, she built a new chapter around arts education, scholarships, exhibitions, and his creative archive.
In this article, you’ll learn about Kathy Benvin’s life with Anthony Quinn and their children. You’ll also see how their years in Rhode Island shaped the family. You’ll also see what followed his death. She later turned his love of art into a foundation that still supports young artists in 2026.
She Met Anthony Quinn in 1985
Kathy Benvin entered Anthony Quinn’s life when his acting career was already several decades old.
The Anthony Quinn Foundation says she began working closely with him in 1985. Her role placed her near more than his film work. By that stage of his life, Quinn was also painting, sculpting, writing, and collecting art. Creativity had become part of his daily life.
Those years gave her a view of the artist behind the movie star.
Quinn could move from a film set to a sketchbook, then from sculpture to writing. Creativity was not a side hobby for him. It was part of the way he moved through daily life.
She later said that living with him changed the way she thought about art. She saw him notice beauty in ordinary details. It could be the way a room was arranged or the shape of a tree.
The Relationship Became a Family
By the early 1990s, their relationship had become a family life.
The couple welcomed daughter Antonia in 1993 and son Ryan in 1996. Both children were born before their parents married.
Anthony Quinn was already an older father by then. He had children from earlier relationships and marriages. His younger children arrived during a very different period of his life.
A 1995 Los Angeles Times profile described how deeply Antonia had affected him. He spoke about his daughter as a major change in the way he looked at himself and his past.
Motherhood also changed the shape of her daily life. She was no longer only working beside an actor and artist. She was raising two young children inside a large family.
Bristol, Rhode Island Became Home
The family eventually settled in Bristol, Rhode Island.
Anthony Quinn had lived and worked in many places around the world. Bristol gave him a quieter home near the water. The family spent his final years there.
The Rhode Island Heritage Hall of Fame says Quinn moved to Bristol with Katherine in the mid-1990s. Their young daughter was with them. Ryan joined the family a short time later.
Quinn had spent much of his adult life moving between film sets, cities, and countries. Rhode Island offered a slower pace.
The family walked, rode bikes, visited local shops, and became part of the Bristol community.
She still lives in Bristol today.
They Married in 1997
Anthony Quinn’s divorce from his second wife, Iolanda Addolori, ended in 1997.
Later that year, he married Kathy Benvin.
By the time of the wedding, Antonia and Ryan were already young children. In a later interview, she looked back on that order with humor. She noted that the children had arrived before the marriage.
The wedding did not begin their life together. It gave legal shape to a relationship and family that had already been built over several years.
They remained married until Quinn’s death in 2001.
She Worked Beside the Artist, Not Only the Actor
Anthony Quinn is remembered around the world for films such as Viva Zapata!, Lawrence of Arabia, and Zorba the Greek.
At home, she also knew him as a painter, sculptor, and writer.
The Anthony Quinn Foundation says she worked closely with his creative life from 1985 until his death. That included the years when he continued making visual art beside his acting work.
That experience later became central to her own career.
She did not try to recreate Quinn as a movie brand after his death. Instead, she focused on the part of his life that had shaped their home: creativity.
Anthony Quinn Died in 2001
Anthony Quinn died on June 3, 2001, at age 86.
His death left Kathy Benvin raising Antonia and Ryan while both children were still young.
She later described single parenting as exhausting, even with the support around her. She also made a personal choice not to remarry.
Her reason was centered on the children. She wanted their father’s place in the family to stay clear. She felt remarriage would have served her needs more than the children’s.
That decision shaped the years that followed.
She Asked to Bury Anthony Quinn at Home
The family’s connection to Bristol continued after Quinn’s death.
His widow asked the town for permission to bury him on the family property. Rhode Island’s official historic cemetery record says she petitioned Bristol. She wanted him laid to rest on the estate.
The town approved the request.
Today, the Anthony Quinn Lot is recorded as a historic family cemetery in Bristol.
The choice kept Quinn close to the home where he had spent his final years.
It also tied the family’s Rhode Island life to his memory in a very physical way. His art archive, family home, and burial place all became part of the same landscape.
Grief Slowly Turned Into a New Mission
The years after Quinn’s death were not only about preserving objects.
Kathy Benvin began thinking about what part of his life could still help other people.
She kept returning to his belief in creativity.
Quinn had grown up poor. Art, reading, drawing, performance, and curiosity had helped him build a way into a much larger world.
She wanted young people to have access to that same kind of creative opening.
That idea became the Anthony Quinn Foundation.
The Anthony Quinn Foundation Began in 2007
Kathy Benvin established the Anthony Quinn Foundation in 2007.
The goal was not simply to honor a famous actor. The foundation was built around arts education.
Its work supports young people who want to study visual art, design, performance, media, writing, and other creative fields.
In 2010, the foundation began its competitive scholarship program.
Those scholarships help young artists attend programs that may otherwise be out of reach.
For Kathy Benvin, the mission grew from something she had seen firsthand. Creativity had shaped Anthony Quinn’s life. She believed young people should have the same chance to discover what art could unlock in them.
She Became the Keeper of Quinn’s Creative Archive
Foundation work is only one part of her role.
She also manages the Anthony Quinn Creative Archive in Rhode Island.
The archive covers a much wider creative life than movie fans may expect. Quinn left paintings, sculptures, drawings, photographs, books, tools, notes, and other pieces connected to his work.
Kathy Benvin has helped organize exhibitions that take parts of that collection to new audiences.
Those exhibitions let people see Quinn as more than an actor.
A visitor may know him as Zorba or from Lawrence of Arabia. The archive then opens another side of him through sculpture, drawing, and painting.
Arts Education Became Her Own Public Work
Over time, the foundation gave her a public role separate from being Anthony Quinn’s widow.
She began speaking about arts education, scholarships, and the need to keep creative subjects inside schools.
Her argument is simple: art is not only entertainment.
It helps young people think, communicate, experiment, and understand themselves.
The foundation’s founder message makes that view clear. She says creativity can be taught and nurtured. It is not a gift reserved for only a few people.
That belief has guided the foundation for nearly two decades.
Her Own Education Fits the Work She Does Today
Kathy Benvin’s current foundation biography also gives a clearer look at her own education.
She earned a bachelor’s degree in Political Science from SUNY Stony Brook in New York.
Her later work moved far beyond politics, but the degree sits naturally beside the leadership role she now holds.
Running a foundation requires more than a love of art. It also means working with boards, donors, schools, students, public agencies, and cultural groups.
Her current foundation biography also says she has served on the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts since 2011.
Antonia and Ryan Grew Up Around Their Father’s Legacy
Antonia and Ryan were still children when Anthony Quinn died.
Their mother had to balance two things at once.
She wanted them to know who their father had been. She also wanted them to grow into lives of their own.
Foundation events and exhibitions kept Quinn’s work present. Family stories and the archive did the same, without turning the children into extensions of his fame.
Ryan has appeared with his mother at arts and foundation events over the years.
The family connection remains visible, but the foundation’s purpose reaches beyond the Quinn name.
Her Life Today Is Still Rooted in Bristol
In 2026, Kathy Benvin is listed by the Anthony Quinn Foundation under her married name, Katherine Quinn.
She remains the organization’s founder and president.
She continues to live in Bristol, Rhode Island. She manages the Anthony Quinn Creative Archive and organizes traveling exhibitions of his work.
That gives her life today a clear link to the years she spent with him.
The home, archive, burial place, foundation, and scholarship mission all grew from the same chapter of family life.
Kathy Benvin Today
In 2026, Kathy Benvin is much more than the final wife of a Hollywood legend.
She shared Anthony Quinn’s last 16 years and raised their two children. She also helped care for the artistic side of his life while he was still alive.
After his death, she built an organization that turned those memories into something useful for young people.
The Anthony Quinn Foundation now supports arts education, scholarships, exhibitions, and access to Quinn’s creative work.
Her public role has become one of stewardship rather than celebrity.
That is where her story stands today. She is still in Bristol and still caring for the archive. She also uses Anthony Quinn’s love of art to open doors for a new generation.
For another story about a longtime actor’s wife whose life extended beyond Hollywood, read our profile of Marie De Narde. She was Jack Lord’s wife and a fashion designer with her own legacy.
