Del Zamora
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Del Zamora | |
|---|---|
 Del Zamora |
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| Born | Roswell, New Mexico |
| Occupation | Actor |
| Years active | 1984-present |
Del Zamora is an American actor.
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[edit] Family background
Del Zamora was born in Roswell, New Mexico, the oldest of three children, and is of Apache Mescalero/Mexican heritage. His family hails from what is now called Lincoln County in New Mexico. Both sides of his family date back in that area to the 1500's. His great, great grandmother, Nestorita Lara was painted by Henrietta Wyeth when Nestorita was 114 years old. The painting still hangs in the city museum in Roswell. Del's grandfather, Tircio Romero, helped build the roads and infrastructure of Lincoln County and served as a member of the county's first school board. Del's grandmother, Mercedes Lara, was the first girl to graduate from high school in Lincoln County and she was first in her class. His mother, Maria, the youngest daughter of Tircio and Mercedes, moved Del and his two sisters to Albuquerque, New Mexico, in order to pursue her college education. She raised her three children alone, after Del's father abandoned the family.
[edit] Education
In his junior year of high school, Del moved to Los Angeles, California. He settled with his father in the city of Hawthorne where Del graduated on the honor roll.
While in his senior year, Del attended night school at Control Data Institute, studying computer technology. Del received his AA degree, graduating first in this class. For five years, Del worked in the computer industry, rising from technician, to service manager, to salesman, to sales manager, to western regional marketing director. All of this occurred over a five year period, during which Del longed to break into show business. He would play music with different bands on the weekends and plotted to become an actor, writer, director, producer, singer, musician and composer. He also earned a black belt in martial arts.
[edit] Career
After five years in the computer industry, Del eventually left that industry to pursue show business. He liquidated his stocks, sold his condo and luxury car and bought a Chevrolet Van. He drove cross country, with his dog, Chivo, to New York to study acting with Stella Adler. He studied Method Acting, and also took classes in fencing, dance, speech and singing. After 14 months of intensive study, Del drove back to Los Angeles and proceeded to live in his van with Chivo, while he pursued an acting career. He pursued theater, student films and non-union films. During this time, Del did almost half of his 78 student films. Most of these were at USC, AFI, LACC or UCLA.
It was during this time that Del first met director Alex Cox at a student film audition for Repo Man at UCLA in 1982. Del had been attending UCLA and had just been accepted to the 1983-1984 motion picture/television program as a writer/director. Del was informed by Cox a year after the initial audition that he was being cast as Lagarto Rodriguez in REPO MAN. Del withdrew from classes to concentrate full time on filming REPO MAN.
After shooting his first professional picture with Alex Cox, Del continued to live in his van for another two years. He was then cast in RoboCop as a working class cop for director Paul Verhoeven and producer Jon Davison while at the same time acting in Straight to Hell for director Alex Cox, wherein he played a federale. Del flew back and forth from Almeria, Spain and Dallas, Texas several times during the shoots of these two films. He then shot Walker in Nicaragua for director Cox and Born in East L.A. for director Cheech Marin in Tijuana, Mexico and East Los Angeles, California. With the income from these films, Del finally moved out of his van and into an apartment with his dog, Chivo.
A versatile actor/director/playwright, Del has appeared in an enormous number of films, television episodes and theatrical productions. He won numerous awards for his accomplished writing and directing. In September 2007, he starred as Mel Torres in the Alex Cox/John Davison/Roger Corman film Searchers 2.0, which premiered at the 2007 Venice Film Festival - La Biennale di Venezia.
