In spite of most obviously recognized as a respected actor of stage, screen, and television, Edward James Olmos is also a distinguished humanitarian who spends tidy time and money supporting various causes and charitable organizations in his resident Los Angeles. Born the son of an arrival and a Mexican-American mother, Olmos was raised in an ethnically discrete area of East Los Angeles. Although he was placed in his pamper's custodianship at age seven following his parents' divorce, O... lmos kept in close contact with his father. In his teens, Olmos was a rock musician and with his end friend Rusty Johnson formed the Pacific The drink flood, a popular group at Sunset Decorticate yard clubs during the up-to-date '60s. It was Johnson who suggested Olmos, who close his own reception was not much of a singer, that he try acting. Olmos eject nine years tiresome to prove himself as an actor, making his glaze debut (billing himself as Eddie Olmos) as an extra in Aloha, Bobby and Rose in 1975. Old to that, Olmos had worked as a minute better and extra in several early '70s television shows ranging from Medical Center to Hawaii Five-O.

In 1979, he made a splash on Broadway playing Pachuco in Luis Valdez's Zoot Suit. The impose on behave was from day one staged in L.A. and represented the beginning on many occasions in which Olmos was paid to act on-level.

During the show's Advanced York abscond, Olmos earned a Tony Nomination and a Histrionic arts Critics Circle Award. In 1982, Olmos reprised the situation in Valdez's film construction. Early in his film profession, Olmos showed a preference in the service of socially studied films and after his ahead strainer appearance played a supreme role in Robert M. Young's Alambrista (1977).

In 1982, he played a creepy police detective in Blade Sucker. That year, Olmos and Robert M. Young co-founded YOY productions to manufacture socially conscious films such as their first connection attainment The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez (1982). Olmos became a VIP when he played the wonderful-pragmatic Lieutenant Castillo on the hip police drama Miami Wickedness (1984-1989) and in 1985 won an Emmy for his efforts.

He earned an Oscar nomination seeing that his inspirational fulfilment as a determined coach who helps a troubled union of urban kids shine in math and science in Stand and Deliver (1986). Though his mistiness vocation was sporadic during the '80s and '90s, Olmos continued to show up regularly in television movies. He made his chips picture directorial salaam in 1992 with the dynamic American Me, a grim look at a reformed racketeer's attempts to stay away from the ferocious, roughneck ways of his long-standing cohorts. Other noteworthy 1990s efforts include the 1994 miniseries Menendez: A Killing in Beverly Hills and Gregory Nava's beautiful My Kinsfolk/Mi Familia (1995). Olmos' humanitarian activities include acting as a United States Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF, being the nationalistic spokesman into the Infant Diabetes Foundation, serving a set up on the boards of the Miami and Los Angeles Children's Hospitals, serving as the executive director of the Hazard Education Shoot, and contributing to the organization for the purpose the Advancement of Silence and Education. For his multitudinous good works, Olmos has received Honorary Doctorates from five educational institutions including the University of Colorado, California State University at Fresno, and the American Film Institute in Hollywood.