James unsuccessfully claimed a share of the family fortune,[2] but he could not prove that his parents had been lawfully married, since his mother had a previous husband who was still alive.

[1] Soon after his father's death in 1710, he made his first appearance on the stage at Abel in Sir Robert Howard's The Committee at the Smock Alley Theatre.

Quin's first London engagement was in small parts at Drury Lane, and he secured his first triumph at Bajazet in Nicholas Rowe's Tamerlane, on 8 November 1715.

The public took a similar view of another episode in which Quin, on being attacked by a young actor who had been angered by the sarcastic criticism of his superior, drew his sword upon him and killed him.

In 1721 a drunken nobleman reeled onto the stage of the theatre and assaulted the manager, Rich, whose life was saved by Quin's prompt armed interference.

In consequence of an attempt made by Garrick in 1750–51 to draw him away from Covent Garden, Quin was enabled to extort from his manager a salary of £1000 a year, the highest figure then reached in the profession.

As an actor his manner was charged with an excess of gravity and deliberation; his pauses were so portentous as in some situations to appear even ludicrous, but he was well fitted for the delivery of Milton's poetry, and for the portrayal of the graver roles in his repertory.