Take the BuddyTV Personality Quiz: Which Battlestar Galactica Character Are You? Edward James Olmos as
William Adana
Edward James Olmos was born on February 25, 1947 in East Los Angeles, California. He is part-Mexican, part-Hungarian, part-Jewish and part-American. In his youth, Olmos planned on becoming a successful baseball player. However, as a teenager, he developed a great interest in music, particularly rock and roll. He was the lead singer of a band called Pacific Ocean, and eventually completed his studies at Montebello High School. After his graduation, Pacific Ocean spent a number of years playing at different clubs around Los Angeles and even came out with an album in 1968. While he was performing with the band, Olmos took classes at East Los Angeles College and California State University, Los Angeles.
He broke through the acting industry with a small role on the television series, Cannon. Since then, Olmos has appeared in a myriad of television productions, including Kojak, The Blue Knight, Police Woman, Starsky & Hutch, Hawaii Five-O, ChiPs, Amerian Playhouse, Hill Street Blues, Miami Vice (for which he won an Emmy and Golden Globe), The Burning Season, Gun,
The West Wing and American Family. He has also been seen in a number of big screen productions like Wolfen, Zoot Suit, Saving Grace, Stand and Deliver, Blade Runner, The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez, Selena, The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit, In Time of the Butterflies, Triumph of the Spirit, A Million to Juan, Gossip and Splinter.
At present, he is most known for his role on the re-imagined sci-fi series, Battlestar Galactica. In talking about the development of his character, William Adama, Olmos said, “He’s going to have to work on a better understanding of himself. He’s going to be tested many times. You know, Giuliani wasn’t tested until 9/11. Bush wasn’t tested until he told the world he was going to fight terrorism. But once you start that ball rolling, you can’t stop. This is a brand new situation. Will this character become the arm of the military? Will he become Napoleonic? Will he become Benito Juarez? Will he become a philosopher? He has to find his role as a new kind of leader.”
Olmos has been married three times and has five children, three of whom are adopted (the other two are from his first marriage to Kaija Keel). He is now married to actress Lymari Nadal.