He began acting as a child in radio, vaudeville, and stage productions before being signed to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in his early twenties.
Quine's films as director include Bell, Book and Candle (1958), The World of Suzie Wong (1960), Paris When It Sizzles (1964), How to Murder Your Wife (1965), and The Prisoner of Zenda (1979).
[6] In 1939, Quine made his Broadway debut in the Jerome Kern/Oscar Hammerstein II stage musical Very Warm for May in 1939, which ran for 59 performances.
[8] Quine's first film for MGM was Babes on Broadway (1941), starring Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney.
[6] While at MGM, Quine also appeared in Tish (1942), with Susan Peters who would later become his second wife, and For Me and My Gal (1942), playing Judy Garland's brother.
At MGM he had a good role in Dr. Gillespie's New Assistant (1942), alongside Peters, and was in Stand by for Action (1942) and the propaganda short The Rear Gunner (1943).
The story was later adapted by another writer, but Quine and Asher were hired to produce and direct the 1948 film version released by Columbia Pictures.
He was third billed in The Clay Pigeon (1949), a low budget noir directed by Richard Fleischer and written by Carl Foreman at RKO.
[15] Quine's first solo effort as director was the musical comedy The Sunny Side of the Street (1951) starring Frankie Laine.
Quine and Edwards entered television with The Mickey Rooney Show (1954–55) which lasted for a season of 34 episodes.
His films included The Solid Gold Cadillac (1956) and Full of Life (1956) with Judy Holliday; Operation Mad Ball (1957) with Jack Lemmon and Ernie Kovacs, with Blake Edwards helping write the script; Bell, Book and Candle (1958) with James Stewart, Novak, Kovacs and Lemmon.
[18] Ray Stark hired him at the last minute to replace Jean Negulesco on The World of Suzie Wong (1960) with William Holden and Nancy Kwan at Paramount.
Quine announced he would do several projects for his own company: The Image Makers with Glenn Ford, Roar Like a Dove with Doris Day, and The Fannie Brice Story for Ray Stark.
He went to Warner Bros. to direct Sex and the Single Girl (1964) with Curtis and Natalie Wood, then did How to Murder Your Wife (1965) with Lemmon.
He was also meant to film The Owl and the Pussycat but Herbert Ross ended up doing it, with Barbra Streisand and George Segal.
In the 1970s, Quine directed The Moonshine War (1970) at MGM and a pilot for a show based on Catch-22 starring Richard Dreyfuss.
He also worked on another, much less successful NBC Mystery Movie series, McCoy, reuniting him with star Tony Curtis, whom Quine had directed in So This Is Paris and Sex and the Single Girl (1964).
[33] On April 17, 1946, the couple adopted a ten-day-old baby boy whom they named Timothy Richard Quine.
[35] In October 1952, Peters died of a chronic kidney infection and bronchial pneumonia, both of which were hastened by dehydration and starvation because she had stopped eating and drinking in the last few weeks of her life.
[38] While Quine was separated from his third wife, he began dating actress Kim Novak, whom he had previously directed in Pushover (1954) and Bell, Book and Candle (1958).
[40] While directing Sex and the Single Girl, Quine met and began dating one of the film's stars, Fran Jeffries.
[44] After an extended period of depression and poor health, Quine shot himself in the head at his Los Angeles home on June 10, 1989.