When the news broke that actress Vanessa Marquez had died, Daniel Villarreal felt like he had lost a member of his own family. The two had worked together on the 1988 film Stand and Deliver, which earned Edward James Olmos an Oscar nomination for his role as inspiring high school teacher Jaime Escalante. “The first time I met Vanessa during the casting of Stand and Deliver, I knew the movie couldn’t be made without her,” Villarreal told the Current during a recent interview.