- His personal life was fraught with life-threatening incidents. He had a cancer scare in 1965. In the 1970s he was the victim, as a pedestrian, of a drunken driver and suffered severe facial injuries which required a long recovery period. In 1982, outside his North Hollywood apartment, he was beaten and robbed. The muggers broke his knees, ribs and cheekbone. He suffered his first heart attack as a result.
- Joined the US Army Combat Engineers at age 18 and formed his own theatrical troupe while in the Army. He acted in and helped produce a hit production, "The Hasty Heart" at which President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his wife, Eleanor Roosevelt, were attendees.
- Modern sources claim that Quarry "won the role of Teresa Wright's boyfriend in the 1943 Hitchcock classic Shadow of a Doubt (1943)," which is hardly likely since at the time of the filming, Wright was 24 and Quarry was only 17, so apparently he must have had some other secondary role. Whatever it might have been, he was all but cut out, but it did lead to an eventual Hollywood career, as well as lifelong friendships with Wright and Joseph Cotten.
- Director/producer/writer Fred Olen Ray, director of many low-budget independent films, contacted Robert in 1987 while he was recuperating in a wheelchair and used him in over a dozen films.
- Has an IQ of 168.
- Louis B. Mayer signed him up at MGM, but the studio management suddenly changed and Quarry sat around for two years without working.
- Once won a scholarship to the Pasadena Playhouse and was discovered by Alfred Hitchcock while filming Shadow of a Doubt (1943) in Robert's home town.
- He completed high school at age 14.
- Had an IQ of 165 and graduated from high school at age 14.
- Won an acting scholarship to the Pasadena Playhouse.
- Encouraged to pursue acting by his grandmother, a frustrated actress.
- Appeared with Paul Newman in Winning (1969). Cut from the film, Newman gave him a part in WUSA (1970). He remained friends with Newman and wife Joanne Woodward for over 20 years.
- A fine chef, he studied the art of cooking at the Cardon Bleu School in Manhattan under the supervision of Dione Lucas.
- A brief bout with cancer in 1965 gave him time to learn how to play bridge, and became an expert.
- In mid 1973 he was named to star in Sugar Hill to be directed by Paul Haslansky.
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