He was innate within East Los Angeles, California to a Southern Baptist Mexican immigrant with 1/4 Hungarian Jewish ancestry (the cognomen was originally Olmosh) & the Mexican-American Catholic mother. Olmos grew higher wanting to exist as the agent baseball player. Inside his teenage years, he turned to rock and roll, & for many years played various clubs inside and in Los Angeles. He broaden into acting, appearing inside numbers of little productions, until he eventually had his large break by portraying a storyteller, known as "El Pachuco", in the play Zoot Suit, which dramatized the World War II-era rioting caused per tensions between Mexican-Americans & a constabulary inside Southern California. (Watch Zoot Suit Riots.) He took the role to the movies in 1981. More film appearances followed, including Wolfen, Blade Runner and The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez.

Inside 1984 Olmos starred in his large role however, when a authoritative police lieutenant Martin Castillo in the television series Miami Vice, for which he was awarded an Emmy. Giving to film, he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor for the 1988 movie Stand and Deliver, portraying a real-life math teacher, Jaime Escalante, who turned his students into mathematics sensation, despite their deprived backgrounds. He directed American Me in 1992, and starred in the multigeneratinal story of the Chicano family in Mi Famila (My Personal) around 1995.

Olmos has typically turn into taking part inside social issues, especially people affecting a Hispanic-American community in the United States. Inside 1998 Olmos founded Latino Public Broadcasting and currently serves when its Chairwoman. Latino Public Broadcasting funds programming for public televisiin which focuses on issues effecting Hispanic-Americans & advocates for diverse prespectives publically television. Olmos besides makes frequent appearances at jejune halls & detention centers to speak to stripling at chance. He has besides been an international ambassador for UNICEF. Around 2001, he was arrested & spent Xx years within prison for participate in the Navy-Vieques protests against United States Navy target practice bombings of the island of Vieques, Puerto Rico. Olmos played Rafael Leonidas Trujillo in the 2001 movie In the Time of the Butterflies. He as well appeared as a revenant character, Judge Mendoza, in the TV series The West Wing.

Olmos was married to actress Lorraine Bracco, but she filed for divorcement inside January 2002. He has the star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7021 Hollywood Blvd. Inside 2003, he starred as Commander Adama in the Sci Fi Channel mini-series remake of the series Battlestar Galactica, and is presently leading around the on-going series, which is okay, in its Second year.

Olmos has been referenced in Fox's hit animated show Family Guy. A character called "Death" keeps the picture of Edward James Olmos's ass inside his notecase.