Prolific actor, tough guy and humanitarian, Danny Trejo is set to accept Los Angeles Press Club’s Visionary Award. The ceremony will take place at the National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Awards Gala on December 1 at the Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles.
The Visionary Award was instituted in 2012 to honor an individual within the Entertainment Industry who uses their high-profile status to make the world a better place and to spread information about issues of freedom and importance.
“Not only is Danny Trejo’s personal story inspirational, but he uses his high profile platform to benefit the less fortunate — both human and animal. Through his experiences growing up on the tough streets of L.A. and overcoming the obstacles of drugs and crime, Danny has learned to reach out to others with a helping hand,” said Press Club executive director Diana Ljungaeus.
The way Danny Trejo puts it is like a definition of the award itself: “Everything good that has happened to me has happened as a direct result of helping someone else. Everything,” he has said on numerous occasions.
Danny Trejo has developed a prolific career in the entertainment industry with a hard-earned and atypical road to success. From years of imprisonment to helping troubled youth battle drug addictions, from acting to producing and now on to restaurant and music ventures, Trejo’s name, face and achievements are well recognized both in Hollywood and worldwide.
“I love playing the bad guy in movies because the bad guy always dies. That’s the real world. If someone asked me to play a bad guy that always gets away with it, I’d pass. That’s the very message I preach to youths who are in crisis and in trouble,” said the actor.
Trejo, with 400 credits to his name, has starred in dozens of films including “Desperado,” “Heat,” “From Dusk Till Dawn,” “Con Air,” “Once Upon a Time in Mexico,” “Machete” and “Machete Kills.”
On the television side, Trejo reunited with Robert Rodriguez for Miramax’s “From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series.” He also had recurring roles on “Sons of Anarchy,” “King of the Hill,” “Breaking Bad” and “The Flash,” and has been featured in episodes of “Blue Bloods,” “What We Do in the Shadows,” “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” and “Kidding,” among others. Additionally, Trejo has voiced characters in numerous animated films including the voice of Boots in “Dora and the Lost City of Gold,” which released in August 2019.
If you didn’t think Trejo was busy enough, he recently expanded his Trejo’s Tacos empire by adding a location at Southwest’s Terminal 1 at LAX, and recently opened a new location at the Original Farmer’s Market. Trejo’s Coffee & Donuts has also proven to be just as successful.
Despite Trejo’s impressive list of credits, it is his continuous roles as a devoted father of three and an intervention counselor that bring him the most satisfaction. His colorful life and prolific career are chronicled in the new bio-documentary “Inmate #1” which will be available early 2020.
On the same evening, the press club will honor TCM host Ben Mankiewicz with the Luminary Award for Career Achievement in Media and Tarana Burke, the founder of the #MeToo movement, will receive the Impact Award for Influential Contributions to Culture and Society.
