Did You Know?
Many family members from the production team, and Luis Valdez's and the Valenzuela family, appear in this film.
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At the first family party, the old lady sitting by Ritchie and the man is Ritchie Valens' mother, Connie Valenzuela.
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In the movie, Esai Morales plays Bob, the older brother of Ritchie Valens, played by Lou Diamond Phillips. In reality, Phillips is older than Morales.
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According to Lou Diamond Phillips in the VH1 documentary "Behind The Music: The Day The Music Died" (1990), Ritchie Valens' sister was on the set the day they filmed the "coin toss" scene where Ritchie wins (or rather, loses) the chance to fly on the plane with Buddy Holly and The Big Bopper. As the scenes were being shot, Ritchie's sister began to weep uncontrollably and when Phillips tried to console her, she hugged him and sobbed, "Why Ritchie? Why did you get on the plane?"
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The actors who played Ritchie, Buddy and The Big Bopper were all much older than the stars they played. Twenty-five-year-old Lou Diamond Phillips played teen-aged Ritchie Valens, 31-year-old Stephen Lee played the 29-year-old Big Bopper, and 33-year-old Marshall Crenshaw played 22-year-old Buddy Holly.
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The band playing the traditional folk version of "La Bamba" at the club in Tijuana is, in reality, the band Los Lobos, who performed all of the Ritchie Valens music for the film. The guitar player next to the bass player is David Hidalgo, who provided the singing voice of for Lou Diamond Phillips.
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The Indian motorcycle that Bob rides throughout the movie is really a Harley-Davidson Sportster mocked up to look like an Indian.
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According to Tommy Allsup (the one who "lost" the fateful coin toss), the toss occurred in the SURF ballroom and not on the airfield as depicted in the movie.
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The Cowboy Palace in Chatsworth, California was where Ritchie Valens was very nervous about the reception he'd receive from an Anglo crowd. The bar is still in business and was used for the film.
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Toward the end of the movie, when Ritchie and Donna are cruising down the road, Ritchie asks Donna if she'll wait to marry him. He says "Just till I'm 25 and I have a big, glass cabinet to keep all my gold records in". Lou Diamond Phillips actually was 25 when he played the role of Ritchie Valens.
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