Collection | Special Collections | William Greaves Collection
Biographical Note
The word multidimensional begins to describe William Greaves as he has played the role of executive producer, director, producer, writer, editor and sound technician, cameraman, dancer, drama teacher and Broadway actor. Greaves was born on October 8, 1925 in Harlem, New York. Growing up in Harlem, Greaves took up drawing at the age of four and began receiving many medals for his artwork. At the age of fourteen he was considered one of the seventy-five best artists in the state of New York and received a scholarship to study in a special art course at the Little Red Schoolhouse in Greenwich Village. While Greaves attended Frederick Douglass Junior High School he began composing songs and studying trumpet. Greave's heart was set on the music and the arts, but his father who was more practical convinced him to go to Stuyvesant High School which was a prestigious science oriented school. While at Stuyvesant Greaves was on the varsity basketball team, an artist for the school newspaper, a member of the scholastic honor society Arista, and in 1980 he was awarded the distinguished alumni achievement. Greaves graduated in the top ten percent of his class and he was going to go to City College to study engineering next.
Greave studied engineering for a year and a half at City College and took up dance while he was there. In 1944, the year that Greave left City College was a pivotal year for him as he joined the African Dance Company of Sierre Leone. Next he was accepted into the renowned Pearl Primus Dance Troupe. Greaves' next endeavor after the Pearl Primus Dance Troupe was the American Negro Theater. Greaves' first performance with the American Negro Theatre was in the role of Beles/Blues boy in Owen Dodson's "Garden of Time." He received rave reviews from New York critics in that performance. Greaves performed in other Broadway plays and acted alongside famous actors Sidney Poitier and Anthony Quinn as well as winning membership in the Actors Studio alongside Marlon Brando.
In the 1950's Greaves became infuriated by the negative stereotype that was presented of African Americans on television and Broadway, so he stepped away from acting and took control of what happens on screen by getting behind the camera. Greaves studied film production at the New Institute for Film with Hans Richter at the Film Institute of City College. At the same time he studied African history at the Schomburg Center and the Ethiopian Library with William Leo Hansberry. Greaves had trouble finding support at this point until Louis De Rochemont, who directed him in Lost Boundaries, gave him an apprenticeship. Greaves was offered the position of Public Information Officer with their International Civil Aviation Organization in Canada from the United Nations in 1961. He left the United Nations in 1964, when the United States Information Agency asked him to make a film for them. Also in 1964 Greaves started William Greaves Production Inc. which has won many national and international awards.
Greaves has produced over 200 documentary films, won more then 70 international film festival awards, an Emmy award for being executive producer of Black Journal and four Emmy nominations. Greaves is winner of special image awards from the NAACP and the National Urban League as well as recipient of an Indy Special Life Achievement Award from the Association of Independent Video and Filmmakers. He was honored at The Actors Studio with the Dusa award along with Robert DeNiro, Jane Fonda, Marlon Brando, Sally Field, Rod Steiger, Dustin Hoffman, Estelle Parsons and Ellyn Burstyn in 1980. Also that year he was inducted into Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame and recipient of a special "homage" at the first Black American Independent Film Festival at Paris.
By Jeffrey R. Lewis
Scope and Content Note
The William Greaves collection serves to capture the impact that William Greaves has had on documentary filmmaking in the United States and covers the period of 1968 through 2003. The collection consists of four series: Writings and speeches; Black Journal; Promotional materials; and Clippings. "Writings and speeches" is arranged chronologically and consists of articles that William Greaves has written about films and filmmaking as well as transcripts and a program for speeches that he has given; "Black Journal" contains information about the groundbreaking television series produced and co-hosted by Greaves; the "Promotional materials" series is arranged chronologically and consists of posters, pamphlets, advertisements, press kits, and other miscellaneous materials that promote William Greaves' body of work as well as a subseries of photographs; and finally "Clippings" is arranged chronologically and includes reviews and analyses of Greaves' films, interviews of Greaves, and articles in general about the filmmaker and his works.
List of films by William Greaves in the BFC/A Collection
Date of Deposit
October 2003
Inventory List:
Series: Writings and Speeches, 1968-2001
"Log: In the Company of Men," Film Library Quarterly, 1968, p.29-34.
"Black Journal: A Few Notes from the Executive Producer," Television Quarterly: The Journal of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. Summer 1970, p. 66-72.
"100 Madison Avenues will be of no help," The New York Times, Sunday, 9 Aug 1970, p.12-14.
"Two Fighters on Film," Making Films in New York, Feb 1974.
"A Black filmmaker remembers Louis De Rochemont," Film Library Quarterly, v.12, n.4, 1979.
"Some Major Problems and Solutions that All Actors Must Consider," Filmfare, May 1-15 1982, p. 36-39.
"A Filmmakers Diary," New India Digest, Feb 1983, p. 42-43.
"Afterthoughts on the Black American Film Festival," Black American Literature Forum, v.25, n.2, Summer 1991, p.433-436.
"Greaves on the future of New York Filmmaking," The City Sun, 25 Sep-1 Oct 1991, p. 20. [reprint of a speech by Greaves given before the New York City Council on 9 May 1991]
"The Unsettling Legacy and Future of U.S. Filmmaking," Black Mask, Dec/Jan 1995, p. 9.
Speech given at council of Michigan Foundations: Honoring the Past Embracing the Future. November 2, 2001 Detroit. Final program from conference included.
NET Black Journal: Public Television's Black Magazine of the Air. [informational packet including: I. Introduction; II. Black Journal Staff; III. Brief History of Black Journal; IV. News Clippings; V. Comments by William Greaves; VI. National Newspaper Publishers Association Resolution; VII. Synopses of Black Journal Programs; VIII. Award Nomination; IX. Critiques]
Black Journal: List of Titles
Program Information
Series: Promotional Materials, 1969-2001
Syllabus - In the Company of Men, 1969.
Press Releases, Nov 1989 / n.d.
Press kit - Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One, 15 Sep 1992. [photographs filed separately in "Photographs" subseries; WGP08-10]
Programs, 1994-2001.
Misc. film advertisements, 2000.
Posters (12) - Ralph Bunche: An American Odyssey, 2001 [in poster cabinet, cabinet 3, folder 3, room 181B]
Press kit - Ralph Bunch: An American Odyssey, 2001. [photographs filed separately in "Photographs" subseries; WGP11-13]
Press kit - Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take 2 ½, 2005. [photographs filed separately in "Photographs" subseries; WGP01-02]
William Greaves Productions film advertisements, n.d.
William Greaves Productions catalog, n.d.
Selected Bibliography, n.d.
Poster - exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum called "William Greaves Chroniclers of the African American Experience" 13 April - 25 May, n.d. [in poster cabinet, cabinet 3, folder 3, room 181B]
Subseries: Photographs, 1968-2003
WGP01 - William Greaves with Emmy award in background, 1997; 11" x 8 ½", color print. [PAPT1997-0008]
WGP02 - William Greaves and Steve Buscemi on the set of Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take 2 ½, 2003; 11" x 8 ½", color print. [PAPT2003-0006]
WGP03 - William Greaves on movie set; n.d. 8" x 10", color print. [PAPT19ND-0212]
WGP04 - William Greaves on set of Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One, 1968; 10" x 8", b/w print. [PAPT1968-0010]
WGP05 - William Greaves with Emmy award in background (same as WGP01), 1997; 10" x 8", color print. [PAPT1997-0009]
WGP06 - William Greaves portrait, n.d.; 8" x 10", b/w print. [PAPT19ND-0213]
WGP07 - William Greaves portrait, n.d.; 8" x 10", b/w print. [PAPT19ND-0214]
WGP08 - Don Fellows and Patricia Gilbert in Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One, 1968; 10" x 8", b/w print. [PAPT1968-0011]
WGP09 - Audrey Henningham, Frank Baker, and William Greaves on set of Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One, 1968; 8" x 10", b/w print. [PAPT1968-0012]
WGP10 - William Greaves on set of Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One (same as WGP04), 1968; 10" x 8", b/w print. [PAPT1968-0013]
WGP11 - Two photos of Ralph Bunche in 1949 (Bunche for Collier's Magazine; Bunche with Eleanor Roosevelt) for Ralph Bunche: An American Odyssey publicity, 2001; 10" x 8", b/w print. [PAPT2001-0004]
WGP12 - Two photos of Ralph Bunche (at the UN in 1963; as a senior at UCLA in 1927) for Ralph Bunche: An American Odyssey publicity, 2001; 10" x 8", b/w print. [PAPT2001-0005]
WGP13 - William Greaves portrait (same shot as WGP07), n.d.; 8" x 10", b/w print. [PAPT19ND-0215]
"A Concerned Filmmaker," Business Screen, Sep 1970, p. 22-23. [interview]
Reviews of The Fighters, Jan-Feb 1974. [The New York Times, Variety, New York Amsterdam News (2), New York Post, and Time]
Cook, Kevin. "Frederick Douglass Memorialized in Film," Washington Times, 14 Feb 1985.
Hatch, James. "William Greaves: Filmmaker," Artist and Influence, v. IX, 1990, p. 55-81. [interview from 21 May 1989]
White, Armond. "Greaves' Film Essays Capture Memorable Moments," The City Sun, 17-23 Apr 1991, p. 19.
Wachunas, Tom. "Museum Film Series Celebrates 'Dean' of Black Filmmakers." The Phoenix, 18-24 Apr 1991, p.11.
Sterritt, David. "Film Fest Honors Black Pioneer," The Christian Science Monitor, 24 Apr 1991, p. 14.
"Festival Lineup has Strong Black Presence," The Urban Spectrum, Oct 1991.
Denerstein, Robert. "Filmmaker fights from the back lines: William Greaves battles portrayal of blacks from behind the camera," Rocky Mountain News, 13 Oct 1991. [last column is cut off]
Stam, Robert. "Preface to the Morningside Edition," in Reflexivity in Film and Literature: From Don Quixote to Jean-Luc Godard, New York: Columbia University Press, 1992.
"Soundbites from Sundance," The New York Times, 2 Feb 1992. [continuation of article only]
"Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One," The Village Voice, 11 Feb 1992.
Knee, Adam and Charles Musser. "William Greaves, Documentary Film-Making, and the African-American Experience," Film Quarterly, v. 45, n. 3, spring 1992, p. 13-25.
MacDonald, Scott. "Sunday in the Park with Bill: William Greaves' Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One," The Independent, May 1992, p. 24-29.
Ryan, Desmond. "A film-within-a-film, and it's 25 years old," The Philadelphia Inquirer, 7 June 1992.
Portwood, Shirley J. "Ida B. Wells: A Passion for Justice," Hayes Historical Journal, v. xi, n. 4, summer 1992, p. 46-49. [p. 47 missing]
Hoberman, J. "It's Déjà vu All Over Again," Premiere, Jul 1992, p. 31, 33.
Knee, Adam. "Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One: Film History Revised," Sightlines, fall 1992, p. 10-12.
Bahn-Coblans, Sonja and Arno Heller. William Greaves Just Doin' It (1976): An Analysis. Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 1997. [photocopy of book]
Anderson, John. "An Obscure Film That Won't Die," New York Newsday, 8 Oct 1997.
Northrop, Martin. "Ralph Bunche: An American Odyssey, William Greave's Masterpiece Documentary is Both Educational and Inspiring," The Colgate Maroon-News, 27 Oct 2000.
San Filippo, Maria. "What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been: William Greaves' Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take On," Sense of Cinema, Jan 2001. [http://www.senseofcinema.com/contents/01/12/symbio.html]
Ralph Bunche: An American Odyssey television listings, Jan-Feb 2001. [The New York Times and U.S. News and World Report]
Sterrit, David. "A director driven to do a little good," The Christian Science Monitor, 2 Feb 2001, p. 15. [2 copies]
Seitz, Matt Zoller. "Forgotten Hero," Newark Star-Ledger, 2 Feb 2001.
Sarris, Andrews. "A Civil-Rights Wrong," The New York Observer, 25 June 2001, p. 19. [2 copies]
Kidde, Phoebe. "Tribute: William Greaves." The Moviemakers, n.d., p. 30.
Lehmbeck, Pierre. "The art of expression through film," River Valley Chronicle, n.d., p. 59, 61-62.
