William Riead's biography:
William Riead attended high school and college in Illinois, graduating from Western Illinois University with a degree in communications. He worked as a news cameraman at KHQA-TV and a radio reporter at WTAD while in college.
After graduating, Riead joined NBC affiliate WGEM-TV as a television reporter, co-anchoring a weekend news program called the Bill Riead/Jim Young Saturday Night Report. He then returned to KHQA-TV as a full-time anchor, working there until 1972.
Riead joined CBS News in New York and was assigned to the network's chief European bureau in London, where he became Foreign News Editor. He covered the Democratic and Republican National Conventions in Miami and was recruited by TVN to be their West Coast correspondent.
In 1975, Riead left network news and formed his own company, CinemaWest, in Los Angeles. He began producing corporate videos for major corporations throughout the U.S. and Europe, and later produced promotional films for Columbia Pictures.
Riead went on to produce numerous films, including "Casey's Shadow", "Midnight Express", "Close Encounters of the Third Kind", and "The Goodbye Girl". He also produced informationalspecials for television, including "On Borrowed Time" and "Dying For A Smoke", which won numerous awards.
In 1981, Riead directed "Land of Hunger, Land of Hope" in India, and later produced a feature film titled "Scorpion", which was released nationally through Crown International Pictures. He also wrote and directed "The Letters", a feature film about Mother Teresa's life, starring Juliet Stevenson and Max von Sydow.
