- Attended and graduated from James Lick High School in San Jose, California.
- Founding director/professor of the Institute for Teledramatic Arts and Technology (TAT) at California State University of Monterey Bay, created in 1995. The major interlinks theater, video, film, radio and new media as different forms of theatrical expression.
- He was awarded the 2016 National Medal of the Arts from the National Endowment for the Arts in Washington D.C. for his services to theatre and music.
- Attended San Jose State University (SJSU) on a scholarship for mathematics and physics.
- He directed three films which have been selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant": I Am Joaquin (1969), Zoot Suit (1981) and La Bamba (1987).
- He was awarded the 1978 Drama-Logue Award for Outstanding Achievement in Playwriting for "Zoot Suit" at the Mark Taper Forum Theatre in Los Angeles, California.
- He worked on adapting Carlos Fuentes' Old Gringo (1989) at the behest of Jane Fonda, but dropped from the project an account of creative differences with her.
- Older brother of actor/producer Daniel Valdez.
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