Copyright 1999 by Scott Hays
Magazine: Vista
Topic: Edward James Olmos – Living His Favorite Role
Byline: Scott Hays

Edward James Olmos had just finished an interview in a Los Angeles TV studio when a tall man stepped toward him, right hand extended.

"You once spoke to me as a youngster at Fremont High School," the man said. "I wanted to say thank you. You made a difference in my life, and that was 14 years ago, which tells me you've been doing this a long time."

Olmos smiled at the man—Kelvin "Special K" Hildreth of the Harlem Globetrotters— and shook his hand. "Let's hope14 years from today somebody comes along and says the same thing," he replied.

For at least these 14 years, Olmos, 43, has been a volunteer for dozens of causes, including the National Hispanic Scholarship Fund, Against Gang Warfare, the Boys Club of America and the Fund for Excellence in Education. Not only had he become Hispanics' most visible spokesperson, he also stands on the front lines of a personal war against gangs and drugs.

These are not trendy celebrity appearances. Olmos has taken his crusade to juvenile halls, hospitals, Indian reservations and ghetto high schools. He has never taken in a penny. "It's been rewarding in other ways, " he says.

His advocacy extends to other causes. Earlier that day, on the set of The Home Show. Olmos had appealed to viewers to refrain from discrimination against Americans of Arab descent. The Persian Gulf War has so charged emotions, Olmos feared, that Arab Americans might become targets of violence in this country.

His eyes moist with emotion, hands together in prayer, he pleaded with the audience: "What's it going to take for us not to become prejudiced? These people are no different than we are. How do we turn around and learn to accept them?"

A sense of humanity has been a key to Olmos' success as an actor. And successful he has been: He earned a Broadway Tony nomination for his 1978 portrayal of the macho narrator El Pachuco in Luis Valdez' musical play Zoot Suit, an Oscar nomination for playing real-life high school teacher Jaime Escalante in the 1988 film Stand and Deliver and both an Emmy and a Golden Globe Award for his Lt. Martin Castillo in television's Miami Vice.

"Olmos is an excellent role model for the Hispanic community, especially the youth," says the Rev. Richard Estrada, director of Angels Flight, a Los Angeles shelter for the homeless. "He speaks their language. They see his authenticity and open up to him."

Authenticity, indeed, Olmos was raised in the Boyle Heights barrio of Los Angeles, where he was born Feb. 24, 1947, to Pedro Olmos, a Mexican welder, and Eleanor Huizar, a U.S.-born Latina.

Years later, as a successful actor, he would return to his neighborhood to help quell gang warfare. In 1985, he talked to 50 gangs that had been persuaded to observe a six-week truce.

If young Eddie managed to escape the drugs and violence that devoured many of his peers, it was because he played baseball zealously from the age of 7. At 14 he was catching for major league pitchers in the California Winter League. His baseball passion also had a more unusual cause: His parents were divorced when he was 8.

The custody agreement allowed Pedro Olmos to visit his son for only eight hours every 15 days. Eddie realized the only way he could see his father outside of visiting hours was in public parks, such as the baseball fields of Montebello and East Los Angeles.

His mother, too, attended the games, and it was not unusual for Eddie to see his parents cheering him on from different sections of the bleachers.

One of three children, Olmos was also hooked into the arts from an early age. He learned to dance from his father and taught himself to play the piano. The rock band he formed, Eddie and the Pacific Ocean, helped pay for his education at East Los Angeles College and later, California State University.

As a drama student at the Lee Strasberg Institute in Los Angeles, Olmos began playing bit parts on TV shows like Kojak and Hawaii Five-0. His stage performance in Zoot Suit (in which he also sang and danced) was recreated in the movie version. That led to more movie roles in Wolfen (1981) as a Mohawk Indian and in Blade Runner (1982) as Detective Gaff, a 2019 race oddity with multiethnic roots and multilingual dialogue.

Olmos' favorite character remains the title character in The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez, a 1978 made-for-TV film. It was based on the Mexican folk song (and the true story) about a cowhand accused of killing a Texas sheriff in 1901. An earlier movie—the 1976 Alambrista!—described the life of an illegal Mexican immigrant.

In Stand and Deliver, also a true story, he won the Best Actor nomination for portraying Escalante, the Bolivian- born math teacher who spurred 18 East Los Angeles high school students to believe in themselves and the value of education.

This role probably did more than anything else to make Olmos a spokesman and role model in the Hispanic community. Its popular message galvanized Hispanics and made Escalante's favorite expression—ganas (drive)— a household word.

To millions of TV viewers, Olmos is best known as the taciturn Lt. Martin Castillo of Miami Vice, a role he played from 1984 to 1989. "I miss playing the character," he says now, "but I don't miss the demands of the show."

His latest project, the film Talent for the Game, is scheduled to open this month across the country. Olmos plays a baseball scout for the California Angels, a man who—like Olmos himself— encourages talent. Olmos' character is forced to confront the changing nature of the game and life itself.

The role is a departure from his most recent Triumph of the Spirit, a 1989 film in which Olmos played a Hungarian inmate in Nazi concentration camp. By contrast, Talent, "is a simple movie that allowed me to explore issues that aren't controversial.

Meanwhile, Olmos continues to carry out his longest-running role—activist. His day at the TV studio did not end with The Home Show. After that interview, Olmos proceeded to tape a public service announcement.

"Call the Internal Revenue Service about earned income credit," he read, in a message directed at single mothers with earnings below $20,300 a year. "You deserve it. You earned it."

Then he read it again, in Spanish. Part of his deal to appear on The Home Show was the opportunity to use the station's facilities to tape the PSA.

From there, he hurried to Abraham Lincoln High School in East Los Angeles to address the students. He had written no speech, prepared no notes. As in all the stops on his speaking tours, he was going to wing it.

"I'm one of the best in my field, but that's no big deal," he told an audience of 2,000. "I'm no smarter or more talented than anyone else in this auditorium."

The message—if I can reach the top, so can you—is one he has delivered countless times to young listeners. Stay in school, he tells them, don't throw your future away.

"No one has ever talked to me in that way," said José Luis Marin, 17, afterward. "I didn't think he was the type of guy who'd take time out to help kids, but he talked to us in ways we could understand. He used examples, more than just words."

Olmos has no thought of abandoning his crusade.

"I'll take a breather from all this volunteer stuff on my deathbed," he says. "At that time, I'll reflect on my life and decide if it was worth it."

"I have a feeling the answer will be yes."