Bud Greenspan, 84, Olympics Filmmaker

(ATR) He was never an athlete, but Bud Greenspan is being remembered as an Olympic legend.

Greenspan, who celebrated the Olympics with a cavalcade of acclaimed films, died Dec. 25 in New York after a years-long bout with Parkinson’s Disease.

"He was kind of Olympian in spirit. He didn't know he was supposed to stop," his companion and colleague Nancy Beffa tells Around the Rings.

The onset of Parkinson’s made his Beijing film the last of three decades of work that included his direct involvement, says Beffa.

Beginning with an Emmy-winning series of films about Olympians in the 1970s, Greenspan’s independent film company -- Cappy Productions -- became a regular at the Games.

He could be easily spotted in the Olympic crowds: black horn-rimmed glasses perched atop his bald head, often clad in a safari jacket, a camera crew nearby.

Greenspan’s storytelling power as a writer and film director drove the popularity and acclaim for his works, which often were the official film of the Games. Beginning in Los Angeles with "16 Days of Glory", there is a Greenspan film for every Olympics since then.

"Bud's lifetime of work was to the Olympic Games and the athletes what John Ford's cinema was to the American West," Mike Moran, former communications chief of the U.S. Olympic Committee, tells ATR.

"He had no peer in his craft, and he was the artist that thousands of Olympic athletes dreamed of when they thought of how their stories might be told one day," says Moran.

One of those athletes featured in a Greenspan opus is Johann Olav Koss, whose speedskating exploits in Lillehammer and charity work made him an enduring figure from 1994.

"Bud was the true believer in the Olympic spirit and he understood the drive, passion and dreams every athlete has toward participating in the Games," Koss tells ATR.

"His dramatic, personal stories captured the essence of the dynamic interference between a personal strive for excellence and the spirit of the Olympic Movement. His films and stories created the popularity of the modern Olympic Games in North America," says Koss, who recently visited Greenspan during his hospitalization.

He calls Greenspan "a good personal friend and close advisor to me since we got to know each other during the 1994 Lillehammer Winter Olympics."

In addition to his films,