Word: ballads
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...proof that with the requisite amount of what Escalante calls ganas (desire), they can lift themselves out of the barrio and become teachers, mathematicians, movie stars -- anything they want. Olmos is "very inspirational, a real hero to the Hispanic community," observes Producer Moctesuma Esparza (The Milagro Beanfield War, The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez). "He not only has star quality, but belief and drive...
Olmos pursues his goals with extraordinary concentration. When major studios were reluctant to distribute 1982's The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez, he boldly insisted until they caved in. "The odds were against us," recalls Cortez Director Robert Young. "But Eddie believed we could make it work, and we did." More recently, the actor has been negotiating with several major U.S. corporations to make copies of Stand and Deliver available to every library, school and boy's and girl's club in the country...
Olmos' next role was as star of a PBS special, The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez, a true story about a Mexican cowhand who became the object of one of the biggest manhunts in Texas history, all because of an incorrectly translated word. He threw himself into the part with characteristic fervor, studying old newspaper clippings and photographs for clues to Cortez's inner state. The most audacious touch, perhaps, was the decision to have Cortez speak Spanish throughout the movie -- no subtitles. "I wanted to put non- Spanish speaking viewers in the same predicament as the law-abiding citizens...
...rugged independence. "This is a red-neck, white-sock county, dogs in the back of pickups, everyone wants to carry a gun," says a longtime political observer. The county seat of Prineville (pop. 5,250) is a "detour down a back road," to lift a line from a country ballad popular there. Lumber trucks and pickups rumble through the town's four traffic lights, which feel the strain of traffic only during hunting season. The lone presidential candidate to visit the county was John Kennedy, in 1960. Such splendid isolation breeds self- sufficiency and a pervasive distrust of government...
...funniest thing in the play is when one of the characters sees Millie reading Carson McCullers' Ballad of the Sad Cafe and warns her mother of its pernicious content. But Millie is saved by Alan, who tells the mother that the book is on the reading list for the modern novel course at his college. Alas, even the play's overt humor eludes the cast...