Bud Greenspan, who for six decades chronicled the lives of Olympic athletes in his uplifting documentary films, died Saturday of complications from Parkinson's disease, his companion and business partner said. He was 84.
Greenspan died at his home in New York City, Nancy Beffa said.
Greenspan's first Olympics were the 1948 London Games, and he was a familiar sight at nearly every Summer and Winter games thereafter, including the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games, from which his work will be released in the coming weeks.
His films always focused on the most inspirational stories, even as questionable politics and performance-enhancing drugs dragged on the games. His most famous work, the 10-part series "The Olympiad," was aired around the world.
Greenspan unabashedly glorified athletes who fought through adversity on their way to success, a thoroughly transparent style that was meant to pull on the heartstrings.
That 1976 project led to a gig of creating the official Olympic film, which he did 10 times (three others were done independently).
Greenspan won eight Emmy awards, choosing to ignore or gloss over scandals, like Ben Johnson at the 1988 Seoul Games or the attack on Nancy Kerrigan at the Winter Games in Lillehammer in 1994.
