Edward James Olmos reveals 'I had throat cancer'
Emmy Award-winning actor Edward James Olmos revealed in a recent podcast that he has completed treatment for throat cancer. Credit: AFP via Getty Images / TNS / Robyn Beck
“Miami Vice” Emmy Award winner Edward James Olmos has revealed he is recovering from treatment for cancer.
“This would be the first time publicly I’ll be coming out and saying it, but I had throat cancer,” the 76-year-old actor, most recently a star of the FX series “Mayans M.C.,” told host Mando Fresko on the podcast “Mando & Friends.” “I just finished getting through it — December 20 was my last radiation. And the week before, I'd finished my chemo. And [for] months and months I was on radiation and chemo as it attacked my throat.”
Gravely voiced but still recognizable, he added, “The doctors would say — I had five doctors — the doctors would say, right before I started, they said, 'Ed, there’s only one thing we have to tell you. … We do not know what you’re going to sound like. … We’re shooting your vocal cords, we’re shooting your throat, where you eat, where you swallow, where you talk … .’ And it becomes the hardest place to … use radiation and chemo. A lot of my friends have passed because of this.”
Olmos attributed his recovery in part to regular exercise, saying he swims a mile a day, and watches his diet.
