Born in 1935 into a family of set designers and painters, Tedy Villalba inherited his name from his father and his grandfather, and passed it on to his son and his eldest grandson; there are five generations of "Tedy Villalbas" in Spanish cinema. Although he began in the family tradition of painting and design with his elders, Tedy Villalba made his own mark in production, gradually working his way up the ranks from Production Assistant to Executive Producer, working with Orson Wells, Manuel Mur Oti, King Vidor, Nicholas Ray, David Lean, Stanley Kramer, Henry Hathaway, John Huston, Robert Rossen, Anthony Mann, Stanley Kubrik, Joshua Logan, Lawrence Olivier, Peter Collison and Pedro Almodovar.