After graduating from college and giving up plans to become a lawyer, Julia moved to New York, studied acting and performed in several Spanish-language productions, including one of "Macbeth". He soon became a favorite of the late Joseph Papp, founder and producer of the New York Shakespeare Festival. At one point when Julia was really down on his luck, he even went to Papp, who employed him for a time as a theater house manager. His breakthrough came in 1971, when a festival production of a modernized, musicalized "Two Gentlemen of Verona" moved from Central Park's Delacorte Theater to Broadway. Julia's Proteus garnered the lusty, fiery actor with the seductive yet booming voice the first of his four Tony nominations for Best Actor in a Musical.

Although Julia had made his feature debut in the hard-hitting study of drug addicts, "Panic in Needle Park" (1971) and had appeared on TV (including a stint on "Sesame Street"), his career continued to thrive primarily in NY theater. Most of his work was in the classics (he would eventually appear with the NY Shakespeare Festival over a dozen times, playing roles from Hamlet to Othello) or in musical comedy (e.g., the cross-dressing musical farce, "Where's Charley?" 1974 which won him another Tony nomination). Julia's sly grin would be put to exquisite use in a change of pace, though, in a 1976 revival of the Brecht-Weill "The Threepenny Opera" and he later did Pinter's "Betrayal" (1980), a vivid stint as a Fellini-like director in a musicalized version of "8 1/2" entitled "Nine" (1982) and lastly, a revival of "Man of La Mancha" (1992).

Sizable feature roles for Julia really began with "The Eyes of Laura Mars" (1978) and Francis Ford Coppola's little-seen misfire, "One from the Heart" (1982). His experience with Shakespeare was brought to bear on Paul Mazursky's bizarre rendition of "The Tempest" (1982), but Julia only began appearing regularly in features in 1985. His work as a political prisoner opposite William Hurt in "Kiss of the Spider Woman" (1985) brought the two actors a joint award as Best Actor from the National Board of Review, and he contributed a very relaxed, unconventional and enjoyable performance as a Latino detective in "Compromising Positions" (1985). Julia did appear in routine fare beneath his talents ("Moon Over Parador" 1988), but he also enjoyed fine roles in the biopic "Romero" (1989) and, in a restrained performance, as Harrison Ford's attorney in "Presumed Innocent" (1990). Although a majority of filmgoers will probably remember Julia most for his dashing, ghoulish and zany Gomez Addams in "The Addams Family" (1991) and its sequel "Addams Family Values" (1993), he also regularly played roles which made social statements, down to one of his last performances, as slain environmental activist Chico Mendes in HBO's "The Burning Season" (1994). Julia's sudden death from a stroke at age 54 led to national mourning in his native Puerto Rico.