Edward James Olmos says he recently battled throat cancer

Stand and Deliver, Battlestar Galactica and Mayans M.C. star Edward James Olmos has announced he recently battled throat cancer.

"This would be the first time publicly I'll be coming out and saying it, but I had throat cancer," the 76-year-old actor said on the Mando & Friends podcast.

"I just finished getting through it. Dec. 20 was my last radiation. The week before, I'd finished my chemo and months and months I was on radiation and chemo as it attacked my throat."

The star said he talked to five doctors before undergoing treatment and was warned his distinctive voice might sound different when it was over.

''We're shooting your vocal cords. We're shooting your throat. Where you eat, where you swallow, where you talk, breathe, everything goes through here,'" Olmos recalled being told. "A lot of my friends have passed because of this."

He lost 55 pounds because he couldn't eat during the ordeal, but is now swimming, rowing and lifting weights to get his strength back.

Mayans M.C. is in its fifth and final season.