My page on IMDB

Photo Art, Print Designs, Fashion websites

Clips of my acting and my resume you can download at LA Casting

Overcoming obstacles is the story of my life. I was born in Hollywood in 1956 and grew up in West LA.

My older sister, the first born, was born with mental health issues. My father was a bit of a hedonist and while he was a good provider, he was not into parenting. My mother had her hands full with my older sister. Thankfully I had a younger brother so there was someone in my home I could be close too. I made a few films with friends in Junior High School and had the lead in the school plays.

At age 15 I entered high school. Instead of being educated and guided I was taken advantage of by my high school counselor and received no education. This experience did leave me with a lifetime love for learning. Read more about my high school experience please click on the “Untold Stories” tab on this website.

I decided to leave LA to go to college at SFSU to study film making. I also took philosophy classes. I did get into the film program at SFSU and made a couple of short films. I was thinking of becoming a Film Director and decided to take an acting class. Once in the acting class I realized how much I loved acting and was thinking I would focus on having a career as an actor.

I love falling in love. As much as I wanted to act and be involved in filmmaking my priority in life was to be in love.

In order to graduate from SFSU I had to either take a writing class or pass a test. In my last semester at SFSU, at age 22, I decided to take the writing class instead of taking the test. In the English Department office there was an extremely cute/attractive clerk. I chatted her up, took her out, and my fate was sealed.

She had mental health issues. We had so much in common and we connected physically. I didn’t know at age 22 that the relationship I had been in back in high school with my male guidance counselor would set me up to become involved in co-dependent relationships. And that is the relationship I found myself in.

Also, there was another woman I respected as an actress. She was going into a theatre training school. I had met the teacher at SFSU and knew he had skill as an acting teacher. I met with him after I graduated to discuss with him my ambition to be a professional Actor. I’ll never forget me telling him that I was thinking of moving to New York City to pursue acting and him saying to me “I didn’t have the maturity”. Now when I think of that I think I should have simply told him “thank you” and left. But I didn’t….I went into his Theatre which turned out to be cult like - with him as the leader. I did learn acting technique and was coerced into stage managing productions. I did act in one play with this group. I did take one summer course in acting in Shakespeare’s plays and played Oberon in Midsummer’s Night Dream. Being in his group, my attachment to my girlfriend, and having to work part time jobs to earn a living made it difficult for me to pursue other education opportunities - such as going into ACT training and other schools in SF. As I hadn’t studied theatre at all in high school I decided to stay at SFSU and work on getting a Masters Degree in Theatre Arts. I knew that getting a MA in Theatre Arts would only help me be able to teach acting - not have a career as a professional actor. I took all the course work and only had to either write a thesis or direct a play in order to get the degree. But what I didn’t know back then in my mid 20’s - what I know today - is that I am more than just an Actor. I am first and foremost a lover, then an artist, and a lover of philosophy. As an artist, I am primarily an Actor. And I am an Actor who loves direction! And in my mid-20’s I did not have a director in my life “directing me” to get my M.A. And I also knew that I would not be able to continue to have a relationship with my girlfriend if I decided to pursue acting fulltime as it would require me to be in NY and LA.

I knew a day of reckoning would come in which I had to decide to pursue acting as a career or settle down with my girlfriend.

And I had an audition that I really stunk at that helped me make the decision to give up acting as a career.

I didn’t have an agent in my early 20’s. But somehow I found out about an audition in SF for the film “Once Upon a Time in America” I remember totally over preparing for the audition using all the “acting technique” I was learning in my cult like theatre group. By the way, my great Uncle was a top art director at Warner Brothers. A couple of times as a kid he brought my Mom, sister and brother onto the lot at Warner Brothers and we watched some films being shot. For this audition I was dreaming, fantasizing, that if I got cast in this film it would be the “ticket” I would need to be able to start my life as a professional actor which would break me free from my girlfriend and her psyche issues which caused me as much pain as the pleasure I got from being with her.

At the audition I totally “over acted” I had no training in acting for film. I was so bad that I recall the casting person telling me how totally bad I was - or something to that effect! I blew my big chance for getting back to Hollywood, my hometown. I was stuck in a co-dependent relationship with my future first wife and in a cult like drama school.

What was I going to do…

I eventually broke free from the cult like theatre group right at the time I was making this decision to give up acting as a career. I love kids. I wanted kids. I knew I would be successful as a father. My girlfriend had the ambition to be a writer. I had the fantasy that we would get married, have kids, I would work in sales when the kids were young. She would become a successful writer and “later in life” I would start acting again. I finally acted on stage in SF in a play out side of the cult like theatre group. I had a great time acting in the play. And then I made the decision to give up acting until “later in life” and got married at age 28 in 1983. My son was born a year later in 1984. My daughter was born in 1989. She was the most beautiful, sweet, wonderful gift from God. Unfortunately, God takes the best ones from us sometimes way too soon. My daughter inherited mental health issues both from her Mother’s side and her Father’s side. Twice in her life, in her late 20’s and at age 33 she fell into a state of Acute Depression. Her depression she fell into into at age 33 in 2022 persisted and she passed away, at age 34, in 2023. Her loss, the loss of other best friends of mine, fills me with both sadness and inspiration to be the best person i can be.

I got my real estate license and became a full time real estate agent in 1989. What I didn’t realize until much later in life that the reason I was able to have a career as a real estate agent as the skill set required is almost exactly the same as an actor who also “produces” films. Real Estate agents must “audition” to get hired by buyers or sellers - and then “interact” with a series of people to produce a home sales. This kind of work fit my personality and my skill set as an actor. I was successful as a Real Estate agent from 1989 all the way up to the year 2022. And I was a high school and Jr. College football referee from 1990 to 2005. In 2006 re-started my artistic life by taking photo classes at CCSF.

Unfortunately, my marriage to my girlfriend was not successful. I knew she had mental health problems. Her father and brother had serious mental health problems. I was addicted to her, co-dependent and when I made the decision to marry her I made the assumption that by getting married and having kids she would simply get better and the mental health problems would diminish. They got worse. Beginning in 1995 I was hoping my wife would get help, come to counseling. She refused. I saw therapists but it was not helpful for saving my marriage.

I met my current wife in 2000, Le, who I saw periodically for the next 5 years. I lied to my wife about my relationships with other women for the next 5 years while I continued to hope my wife would come to counseling and my marriage could be saved.

Finally, in 2006, the year I had started my artistic life again my wife found out about my other relationships. She demanded a divorced. My kids agreed. I moved out on September 1, 2006.

I had last seen Le on her birthday, Feb. 12, 2006. I hadn’t communicated with her. I knew that if I called her and let her know I was single again I would want to be with her full time.

My ex-wife’s father had abandoned her and her siblings when she was young. She had the expectation I would do the same.

In 2006 my kids were age 22 and 17. While I was single in the fall and winter of 2006 I was thinking that I had the freedom to move back to LA and pursue acting. But if I did that it would be seen as “abandoning” my kids by my ex wife - and I didn’t want that. And there was the fear - of NOT being successful as an actor in LA - that held me back from moving to LA .

But And my desire to have a family, have a wife was too strong. I wanted both a family AND the freedom to be an actor, an artist. Christmas and New Years eve was approaching. What would I do…

I decided to call back Le just before Christmas, 2006. We got together. She moved into my house in January, 2007. We were married in December of 2008

Here is a line I will write as a line of dialogue in a movie or a play someday that is inspired by my current marriage to Le:

“I became a free man when I married my wife”

Le has a family both in San Jose and in Saigon/HCMC. She was a professional singer in her 20’s. She is a wonderful wife and I have a wonderful family through her. They inspire me, along with the memory or my daughter and my son, to be the best person I can be.

In 2007 I took a studio art class at CCSF. I was 51 years old with 18 and 19 year old kids. It was on a Saturday morning. I told the teacher that I had been a football referee on Saturdays for the past 15 years but I felt more “at home” in her class than I had ever been on the football field. I loved to take portrait photos and got invited by a woman I know from real estate who was a make up artist to attend a fashion show.

I went to the show and met two artists/painters, my age, who had printed their abstract art on fabric and made clothing! I was creating abstract images with my photos and the idea of creating prints for fashion and making fashion hit me like a ton of bricks! The clothing business was in my blood. My dad was a clothing salesman. My Grandpa was importing silk ties from China from before WWII. I remember being attracted to women when I was young because of the way they styled their outfits - not just because of their looks. The “actor” in my suddenly wanted to have a business making clothing with my prints! I attended a textile show in New York City and learned all about the “print design” business. I took classes in how to make clothing/working with sewing factories and printing companies. I decided to start a fashion line making leggings and simple body con dresses. The model I was working with came up with the name “Wild beautiful clothing”. I started up the business and had so much fun showing off the clothing. But the whole time I felt like I was “acting” like a fashion entrepreneur. Fortunately my activity in photography, art and fashion was helping me meet people I could help as a real estate agent. But I soon realized that I was “in over my head” in creating a fashion brand. So I decided to let the brand Wild Beautiful Clothing sit idle while I learned more about fashion.

A young fashion design student from japan was introduced to me. She made her first collection of fashion using my prints. We worked together for me to edit my prints to fit her patterns and I learned more about fashion design. After she went back to Japan I decided to make Asian style dresses, again, with the vision/fantasy that I could create a brand and a business to make fashion with my prints. So I created Louis Klein I make fashion as an extension of my art. Hopefully some day the right partners will emerge who will help me build this brand and create a business to make fashion.

Now, in 2024, I am focused on acting. My goal is to act at the highest level in films and Television.

My age range now is around 55 to 77. I love to play all kinds of characters, particularly bad guys, but I can play a good guy too, no prob.

Now - here’s more personal history:

My grandma was theater arts student at USC back in the 1920s. I just love the image in my mind’s eye of her performing in a theatre on campus in a student play back in the 1920s.

I got my start acting on stage in Junior High School. I was the lead in many plays and loved to be recognized by the other kids in school for that achievement.

I got distracted in high school and didn’t act in theatre but I did act in one student film in which I played a hobo.

Photos of me as a referee high school football referee

My return to acting happened when I was 51 years old in 2008. I took an acting class at CCSF, at First Take, and then I found Bobby Weinapple. I attended his work shop for about 5 years. I’ve acted in a few plays in Marin County and in a lot of on camera productions in the Bay Area. In 2018 I started going to auditions in LA and have been cast in a few on camera productions down in my old home town, Los Angeles. I hope to be doing a lot of acting on camera and on stage in LA soon.

THANKS for visiting my website.