Bud Greenspan Has Endured to Enjoy More Days of Glory

Bud Greenspan, like so many of the athletes he portrays in his films, has endured, and he has conquered.

He has, over the years, endured rejections from television networks who thought real-life stories don’t attract audiences.

He has endured the loss of his wife, Cappy, his partner in both life and livelihood, who died unexpectly in 1983 at the age of 51 from complications that developed while she was undergoing treatment for cancer.

And Greenspan has endured the ridicule of show business friends who told him he was making a big mistake by investing $3 million into making the official film of the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, “16 Days of Glory.”

Because of restrictions imposed by the International Olympic Committee, the film could not be shown to the public until the summer of 1985.

“People told me no one would be interested in the ’84 Olympics a year later,” Greenspan said from New York this week.

Greenspan, as he has done so often, has proven the experts wrong. He has conquered.

In this Olympic year, his “16 Days of Glory” will be shown in more than 100 countries and viewed by more than 500 million people. PBS, thanks to a grant from Seagram’s, will show it in six one-hour parts on successive Wednesday nights, beginning next week.

Greenspan, 61, is busier than he’s ever been. The Seoul Olympic Organizing Committee just awarded him the North America film rights to the 1988 Olympics. He’ll supplement the Koreans’ official film for showing on the Disney Channel next year. He and partner Nancy Beffa will also serve as consultants to the Koreans’ film.

The Disney Channel, which is currently carrying his “Olympic Greats” vignettes, will, on Aug. 19, show Greenspan’s “Olympic Dreams” film, which profiles possible future Olympians.

His many other projects include editing the official film of the Calgary Winter Games, to be shown by the Disney Channel next year, and editing “Time Capsule: the 1936 Olympics,” which he hopes to sell to one of the major networks.

In 1951, Greenspan, then a young sportscaster in New York, noticed a small story on the back page of the New York Times. It was about a Harlem Globetrotters exhibition in the outdoor Berlin Olympic Stadium.

The story mentioned that Jesse Owens was among the 80,000 at the exhibition, returning to the site where, 15 years earlier, he had won four gold medals in track and field.

He had been snubbed by Adolf Hitler, but now he was being honored by the mayor of West Berlin. Owens took a victory lap to the cheers of the crowd, then said: “I can’t believe this is happening.”

Greenspan saved the story, and in 1964 he and Cappy went back to West Berlin to make a documentary, “Jesse Owens Returns to Berlin.” It was the first and, for Greenspan, the most memorable of the many Olympic documentaries he has produced.

Since then, Greenspan has used the Olympics as a backdrop to tell fascinating stories about people, true stories that stir true emotion from those who watch them.

Jim Gray, now a reporter and producer for NBC Sports, worked for Greenspan on “16 Days of Glory” as an associate producer.

Says Gray: “I think Bud is so good because he strives for perfection. He has to find exactly the right sound to match each frame, the right word for each picture. He won’t tolerate anything but perfection. And he has the patience to achieve it.

“Bud used to tell me all the time that you can have talent, you can have pride and you can have courage to try different things, but none of it means anything unless you have the ability to endure.

“He’s like the athlete who keeps trying and trying, getting up every day to train with the hopes of someday standing on top of the victory stand. That’s what Bud does. He just keeps trying, keeps enduring until he too reaches the top of the victory stand.”

Gymnast Peter Vidmar says: “With Bud’s work, it is so good, so perfect, you watch it without realizing it’s taped. The emotions are the same as if you were watching it live.”

If you called central casting looking for someone to play a film maker, you couldn’t find anyone who would fit the role better than Greenspan. There are those glasses atop the shaved head, the pipe, the khaki jacket.

When he is in Los Angeles, he can usually be found at the Polo Lounge, meeting with some of the most influential people in show business, or on the tennis court, playing with some sort of dignitary.

About the glasses on the head, he says: “I used to always lose my glasses. I’d set them down and not remember where. I got tired of having to buy new glasses, so I finally found a place to put them where I wouldn’t lose them.

“I don’t put them on my head to be ostentatious. I put them there to save money.”

About the shaved head, he says: “I was about to go into the Army Reserves in 1953. I had a crew cut at the time. A barber friend of mine offered to shave my head so the Army barber wouldn’t have to. I haven’t been back to a barber since.”

TV-Radio Notes

ABC will offer only weekend coverage of the U.S. Olympic track and field trials, which begin today at Indianapolis and run through next weekend. One good thing, though, is most of the major finals will be held on the weekends. What’s worse is that, in the West, the coverage will be delayed. Saturday’s coverage, delayed three hours, will be part of “Wide World of Sports,” which begins at 4 p.m., and will feature the men’s 100 final at about 5:20. Also on “Wide World” Saturday will be delayed coverage of the Olympic Boxoff at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. Sunday’s coverage of the track and field and the boxoffs will begin at 2 p.m., a delay of two hours. The women’s 100 final will be shown about 3 p.m.

The ABC announcers working the track and field trials will be Al Trautwig, Marty Liquori, Dan Dierdorf, Becky Dixon and Kathrine Switzer. Three of the five, Trautwig, Dierdorf and Dixon, are not track experts. Trautwig showed his lack of track knowledge while announcing the Oslo meet July 2. He read Heike Drechsler’s winning 100 meters time as 11.92 seconds without even blinking. Drechsler could run 11.92 in Army boots. The correct time was 10.91. A knowledgeable track announcer would have immediately known that 11.92 had to be a mistake.

The Mike Tyson-Michael Spinks fight may not have been an artistic success, but the promoters of the pay-per-view telecast say they are satisfied with sales. Tony Acone, the president of Prime Ticket who headed up the promotion for Cable Promotions Partners, said the fight was seen in about 160,000 Southern California homes, which represents 25% of national pay-per-view sales. The Southern California showing grossed $6.5 million. Cable Promotions Partners, a group headed by Jerry Buss and Bill Daniels, paid $2.7 million for the rights and spent another $500,000 on promotions. “We made a slight profit,” Acone said. “But the main thing is the cable companies that carried the fight made money.”

Showtime will televise the Evander Holyfield-James (Quick) Tillis fight at Caesars Lake Tahoe Saturday at 7 p.m. Holyfield, the cruiserweight champion, is making his debut as a heavyweight. Holyfield eventually hopes to meet Tyson. . . . The next pay-per-view fight will be the International Boxing Federation middleweight title bout between Frank Tate and Michael Nunn July 28 at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. The cost is only $12.95. . . . For the first time, an auto race, the AC Spark Plug 500 stock car race at Pocono Sunday, July 24, will be televised on pay-per-view, with the cost ranging from $9.95 to $12.95.

CBS’ second weekend of Tour de France coverage will be shown Sunday at 1:30 p.m. . . . Golden Gater Productions of San Francisco will tape Sunday’s Subaru bicycle races in Beverly Hills for syndication later this month. Channel 7 will carry the telecast Sunday, July 31, at 9 a.m. GGP, better known for its skiing coverage, has been doing bicycle races the past two years, including the Tour of Italy.

Tuesday’s All-Star game telecast on ABC received a 20.5 national Nielsen rating, up from last year’s 18.2 on NBC. . . . Bob Costas was the big winner at this week’s sports Emmy Awards dinner in New York. He was named outstanding host, beating out Dick Enberg, Brent Musburger, Al Michaels and Jack Whitaker. John Madden was named best commentator for the fourth time in five years. Best edited special was the Paris-to-Roubaix bicycle race on CBS. . . . TBS has hired Tony Verna as executive director and producer of the 1990 Goodwill Games in Seattle.