He had started acting in his Brooklyn high school when an injury had ended his basketball season early and discovered a lifelong passion.

In his 2010 memoir, An Actor and a Gentleman, Louis explained “I knew too little to be nervous” for his stage debut.

After getting a scholarship to New York University for basketball and drama, the rising star began picking up various odd roles on stage and eventually television shows in the late 1970s before transitioning into movies and blockbusters…