Louie Olivos, Jr., eldest son to Don Lewis Olivos Sr. & Dona Phoebe Gamez Cisneros Olivos, is an actor, promoter, producer, director and playwright from Santa Ana, California. He studied film at Santa Ana College the University of Southern California and under Stella Adler and is a Screen Actors Guild (SAG) member. He and his family once owned the Princess, West Coast Theater, and Yost Theater in Historic Downtown Santa Ana and showcased Classical Mexican Cinema there for nearly a half of a century throughout Orange County. As an entertainment producer and promoter, he brought Antonio Aguilar, Cantinflas, Vicente Fernández, Juan Gabriel, Pedro Infante; as a rock and roll promoter he brought Sonny & Cher, Wolfman Jack and Tina Turner among many other celebrities to Santa Ana. Through his promotion company called Estrellas de Mexico, he showcased and booked Yolanda Del Rio, Yuri, Pedro Armendáriz & Los Tigres del Norte. In 1971, he founded Teatro Los Actores de Santa Ana and has been active with his troupe around Los Angeles theater houses, including the Ricardo Montalbán Theater and Stella Adler Theater in Hollywood; this troupe is the oldest Latino actor's group in Orange County.
Since 1939, the Olivos family were pioneers in the exhibition of Latino films, an enterprise taking them to Spain and Mexico, where they collaborated with the actors, directors and producers of the Golden Age of Mexican Cinema. Through the family business, Olivos was able to attend key film festivals, like the Cannes Film Festival and the Show West Convention in Las Vegas, where he facilitated the distribution of Latino classics into new markets, including non-Latino ones.
Louie Olivos, Jr. is an Original Member of Nosotros, Ricardo Montalbán's prestigious group since the 1970s.
Olivos has been married to Macaria Calderon Olivos, a New Mexican actress, for over 50 years, and has had four children, Gay Denise Olivos-Lincoln, Christina Kay Olivos, Lewis Raphael Olivos III. (BJ) and Roman Olivos. He is a third generation Mexican American.[1]
Olivos has written over 20 bilingual plays, including: