Hector Perez left WMAQ-TV after a year`s work in production to become an independent television producer in 1977. He was working on a show for WBBM-TV when he met Ed Villarreal, who had been asked by his program director to see if Perez`s program complied with the station`s policies.
”I went over to the (Grant Park) band shell, where he was taping the Mexican Independence Day activities,” Villarreal recalled. ”I was looking for a guy in his 40s or 50s, and there he was, with a mobile truck and all this equipment he`d rented. I asked him who he worked for and he said, `I work for myself.` ”
They became friends after that, discovering many things in common. They were South Siders; ex-marines; graduates of Chicago colleges–Perez of Columbia College, Villarreal of De Paul University. They were the only Hispanic-American TV producers to have won local Emmys. In time Perez persuaded Villarreal to leave CBS and join him in a series of programs appropriately titled ”The American Way.” They hope to complete videotaping sometime this summer. Each segment will deal with ways of succeeding in business, the scripts written so the average person–who may be out of work and can`t find a job–can understand and perhaps feel motivated to pursue a similar enterprise.
Not only will the partners videotape the programs with a new $40,000 mini-camera they recently invested in, but they`ll also obtain sponsors and sell the series to individual stations in major markets around the country.
(Hector`s original company continues to produce other types of programs to keep cash coming in.)
Having a partner in such a venture requires mutual intestinal fortitude, but it also helps ease risk anxiety.
”There`s no rivalry here. We are in this together, and we check each other all the time,” Villarreal says. ”One doesn`t let the other get away with a thing. We push each other, and we trust each other.”
”I love this guy and I don`t envy the successes he`s had at all,” said his partner. ”But we`re not here to be `yes` people to each other.”
Villarreal is a bachelor. Perez and his wife, Betty, have three children and are expecting twins. Nonetheless, Perez is the gambler in his professional life, his partner the conservative. They argue about the best way to do many things, but ”it`s like a family thing,” says Perez. ”We only want something good for each other. We never go home angry.”
