Silverio Pérez


Silverio Pérez Figueroa is a Puerto Rican musician, writer, comedian, entrepreneur and broadcasting media host.

Early life

Pérez is the oldest of the eleven children of Silverio Pérez Rosado and Victorina Figueroa Amador. The Pérez are of Sephardi Jewish Anusim origin. While Pérez was a teenager he became involved in various church singing groups and in the Puerto Rican production of Up with People. He later formed a duo, Silverio y Roxana, that specialized in Puerto Rican music, and as a result, was a guest -and later hosted- a typical Puerto Rican music television program, "Borinquen Canta", along with news broadcaster Guillermo José Torres. He later studied Chemical Engineering at the University of [Puerto Rico at Mayagüez], but remained active as a part-time singer while completing his studies. Pérez began working at Caribbean Gulf, monitoring the process of the gasoline. He then realized that Engineering, while a lucrative career, did not fulfill his vocation as a singer.
During his period as a student of the University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez, Perez met and befriended such legendary figures as politician Jose Enrique Arraras, basketball star Fufi Santori and sportscaster Elliott Castro.

Career

Pérez formally started his career with the singing group Haciendo Punto en Otro Son with four debut concerts at a night club called "La Tea" in San Juan. This band, whose original members included Irvin García, Jossy Latorre, Nano Cabrera and Tony Croatto, toured all of Puerto Rico and some other countries, recording various albums and 8-tracks. The group faced blacklisting in some Puerto Rican towns due to the political nature of some of its songs, and experienced numerous personnel changes over time. Haciendo Punto would "break up" twice during the 1980s, to be reformed in the late 1990s.
As a musician he appeared along his wife performing in a protest supporting the UPR strike. TeVe Guía published an article about this presentation and the act gathered the interest of producer Tommy Muñiz. While making an appearance in Borinquen canta, the producer decided to place Pérez as host since the original had left Puerto Rico suddenly to film a telenovela. He introduced the show, but in the process forgot to introduce himself, a mistake that was emphasized by the media. Despite this, Pérez established himself in the role for two years, eventually leaving due to conflicts with his professional career. In February 1972, the couple had fraternal twins, Mariem and Carlos Javier.
During the 1980s, Muñiz and WRIK-TV placed Pérez as the host of the talk show Peña en downbeat, while his children hosted a similar concept aimed at children in Dimensión Juvenil.
After Haciendo Punto en Otro Son went into a hiatus, Pérez went into Puerto Rican television with the Los Rayos Gamma show. In Los Rayos Gamma, he teamed up with Sunshine Logroño, Jacobo Morales and Horacio Olivo to satirize Puerto Rican politics. After Channel 11 went bankrupt, Los Rayos Gamma moved to Muñiz's channel, WRIK-TV. The group debuted on November 1, 1981. He was along several figures, including Los Gamma, that participated in the inauguration of Súper Siete following the sale of the channel. Later on, he became the show host of the successful program, En Serio Con Silverio.
In 1994, he appeared in Rafo Muñiz's special, ¿A quién no le falta un tornillo?. In 1995, he was credited with coining the term El Chupacabras, referring to creatures around Puerto Rico with a habit of attacking and drinking the blood of livestock, especially goats. On February 3, 1997, he participated in Los 75 años de don Tommy, a special dedicated to Muñiz's career.
In 2000, he debuted in the show Anda Pa'l Cará on Tele Once; it aired until 2009.

Accident and illness

In 1989, an electric gate caught Pérez's right arm and fractured various arm and hand bones, for which he underwent surgery on at least four occasions. On October 31, 2005, Pérez had a cancerous tumor removed from his prostate. Until then, Pérez had been fairly successful in hiding his illness from the Puerto Rican public.

Works

He wrote, in 1996, a book named Humortivación, which promotes motivation through humor. It had two sequels, Más Humortivación: el camino del éxito and Humortivación… otra vez, plus a follow-up, Domesticando tu dinosario.
In 2004, he wrote El humor nuestro de cada día: las tres tristes tribus, a critique about Puerto Rican politics. The "three sad tribes" in the title refer to the three local political parties that have dominated politics in the island since 1968. It was followed up in 2008 by another political critique, Desde mi grúa: manual del elector aguzao.
In 2009 he released Prefiero ser trovador: décimas con amor y humor as a book + CD bundle, which was later followed in 2011 by Punto decimal: décimas para decir más, also a book + CD bundle.
In 2010 he wrote a motivational book, Abracadabra: buenas palabras.
He also wrote Paso a paso… por el Camino de Santiago: Crónica de un peregrino, a memoir chronicling his experience during his peregrination to the Santiago de Compostela Cathedral in Galicia, Spain.
In 2016 he wrote La vitrina rota o ¿qué carajo pasó aquí?, in which he offered his "introspective view into Puerto Rican history from 1898 to the present", with emphasis on why Puerto Rico filed for bankruptcy. During 2017, he also offered conferences in Puerto Rico and in United States about the island's current situation, based on the contents of this book.
In 2017 he wrote a novel, Un espejo en la selva, about a Puerto Rican psychologist kidnapped by FARC militants in Colombia. He has written several books. Two of the most recent ones, Un Espejo en la Selva and La vitrina rota o ¿qué carajo pasó aquí?, were awarded by International Latino Book Awards as Best Drama and Historical Book, respectively. He is the composer of songs, among them, the danza dedicated to the island of Vieques.
In 2018 he wrote his memoir book Sólo CUENTO con el CUENTO que te CUENTO, where he told his memories as "parent, professional, artist, and Puerto Rican".
Pérez writes a column for El Nuevo Día called Punto de Vista. He gives "Humortivacion" talks in Puerto Rico and the US, promoting his most recent novel by the same name.
In 2020, Pérez recorded Guardame un abrazo with his spouse and 8 other musicians.
In 2023, Pérez published El secreto de mi padre, a biography of his father Silverio Pérez Rosado, who died on April 25th, 2024 aged, 109 years and 310 days and was the oldest living man in Puerto Rico.