However, as history relates, it was Los Lobos, the band, who sent "La Bamba " trilling up the charts - not Lou Diamond, who merely mouthed the words on screen.

It is ironic, then, that the Philippines - born actor is a startling vocal mimic, adept at sending up Woody Allen or Robert De Niro at the drop of a sombrero. On the set of the forthcoming Brat Pack western Young Guns, he was equally proficient at apeing his co-stars Emilio Estevaz, Charlie Sheen, Casey Siemasko and Kiefer Sutherland.

"La - la-la-la-la-la Bamba ... "Sutherland retaliated with a vicious grin, prompting LDP to swing round and scream, "Shut up, just shut up - or i'll whack you ".

Actually, Sutherland and Phillips are the best of friends, and have just embarked on a second film together, the action - thriller Lakota ( Renegades ), with Phillips also acting as associate producer.

Besides appearing in eight pictures and two tv movies, Phillips has written seven screenplays, one of which, Trespasses, he co - starred in. Now with Lakota he's aiming for the big time, and has already lined up Universal Pictures as a distributor.

"I am an actor", he says, "but my other interests excite me too. Writing and directing and teaching all help me to be a better actor. It also helps ease the tension an actor often experiences of having all his eggs in one basket ." Phillips was teaching acting technique in Dallas, where he lived, when he heard they were casting for La Bamba.

"When my agent sent me out to audition, they said it was for the Frankie Valli story. I thought i'd be too tall, but i give it a shot anyway. "as it happens, the producers were looking for an actor to play Ritchie's half brother, Rob Morales, but after Lou's audition they cast him in the lead.

However, he returns to the world of teaching in his new movie, Stand and Deliver ( released here this month ), but in a very different role - that of pupil.

Edward James Olmos ( Blade Runner ) stars as Jamie Escalante, teacher and disciplinarian; Lou Diamond plays Angel, a cholo ( gang member ), torn between his loyalty for the gang and the prospect of a better, academic future. He won the role over hundreds of young hopefuls, and virtually auditioned for it in an episode of Miami Vice. "I got a lot of nice compliments on my death scene ," he said. His big bit was opposite Olmos as regular cop Lt Martin Castillio, who was so impressed with Phillips performance that he suggested he get in touch with the director of Stand and Deliver. As co - producer of the film, Olmos had more than a little influence. Lou Diamond Phillips got the part.

The film's story is true. Jaime Escalante, a Bolivian - born teacher, joined Garfield High - an East Los Angeles school breathing on drugs and populated by gangs - to instruct computer science. When he discovered that there were no computers, he was shunted onto a calculus course, on which he was hell bent to excel. And, by fair means and foul, he turned his class of criminal morons into diligent scholars. By the time they sat their calculus exam ( so demanding that less than two percent of all American students attempt it ) every last one of them was determined to pass, and, blow Garfield down, every one of them did.

Now comes the nasty bit. After assiduously examining the test papers, the ETS ( The Educational Testing Service of Princeton, New Jersey ) concluded that there was such a distinct similarity of incorrect answers among the students that the entire class was accused of cheating. Despite Escalante's protests that the answers were the same because the mathematical procedures were taught by one person, his students scores were invalidated. True Story.

For his part, Lou Diamond chose production assistant Daniel Villa real as a role model, a man whose past accurately mirrored that of Angel's". We talked for hours about the entire ' inner-city ' experience, including the religious and family implications", Lou Diamond recalled.

" Danny explained what happened in the schools and talked about kids who get stoned on PCP at eight in the morning to star their day". Then we went for a ride. Danny took me down to East L.A and showed me the places he had hung out. And the more i listened to Danny, the more i was able to pick up his speech patterns, which helped me develop the right accent".

Stand and Deliver received excellent reviews in the States and did sensational business in selected cinemas.

I knew that Ritchie Valens was going to be a very identifiable role ". Lou explained ". So i wanted to do something 180 degrees away from it, and took this East L.A . cholo in a very small film. And it's turned out to be not such a small film. It's nice that i've been able to bounce around - my god i'm in a western now ".

Like Anthony Quinn before him ( by fifty years ), Lou Diamond Phillips has the dark, Hispanic features that allow him to play a variety of ethnic roles, from a Chicago singing superstar to a Navajo Indian in Young Guns. Like Quinn, Phillips boasts an Irish - American - Mexican blood clot - and more.

"I'm mainly Filipino on my mother's side", he say's, but there also strains of Hawaiian, Japanese, and Spanish, and on my fathers side I'm Scotch - Irish and an eighth Cherokee Indian". The Mexican input is donated by Hollywood.

The son of a Navy aircraft Mechanic, LD saw a dozen states before he could call Texas home. There he won a degree in drama from the University of Texas and involved himself in the local cinema scene. He made four films there - " that people across the country probably would not have seen " - but insists that Texas is now making films that transcend regionality.

There was a TV movie, Time Bomb ( 1984 ), with Morgan Fairchild as a store - window terrorist, and then La Bamba, for which Lou was eternally unsuited. He could neither sing nor play the guitar, but immediately set about remedying the error. He spent hours every day practising the guitar.

" My fingers bled and i lost five layers of skin developing the callouses necessary to play properly", he recalls. The film was a surprise and runaway success and Lou Diamond Phillips was a instant celebrity.

" I started feeling the imminent overnight success syndrome", he says, so I felt like I had to go back to Texas to some very good friends of mine whom i'd worked with in films before.

But La Bamba brought more than success. It brought Julie Cypher, production assistant. She was also in on Stand and Deliver - as "additional second assistant director - and was bride at Lou Diamonds wedding last year.

" It was a very sweet , very romantic sort of thing ", he say's. She's next due to play assistant director of Lakota . The word is they're going to make a powerful acting - producing partnership in tomorrow's Hollywood.

For now, Lou Diamond Phillips can relish his surprising track record of success. When Young Guns opened this August it was the top grossing movie in America, in spite of some unkind reviews.

" They were gunning for us when this movie came out ", he philosophizes, there is no doubt about it. We set ourselves up; we left ourselves open to the barbs. We were the young guys who had achieved a certain notoriety ".

Obviously, Phillips is keeping his feet on the ground - and his eye on the future.

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