William Garfield Greaves (October 8, 1926 – August 25, 2014) was an American documentary filmmaker and a pioneer of film-making. After trying his hand at acting, he became a filmmaker who produced more than two hundred documentary films, and wrote and directed more than half of these. Greaves garnered many accolades for his work, including four Emmy nominations.
Early life
Greaves was born in Harlem in New York City on October 8, 1926. He was one of seven children of taxi driver and minister Garfield Greaves and the former Emily Muir. After graduating from the elite Stuyvesant High School at the age of 18, Greaves attended City College of New York to study science and engineering, but eventually dropped out to pursue a career in theater. Starting as a dancer, he eventually moved into acting, working in the American Negro Theater.
Career
Acting and film training
In 1948, Greaves joined the Actors Studio and studied alongside the likes of Marlon Brando, Julie Harris, Anthony Quinn, Shelley Winters, and others. During this time, he undertook a number of roles on the stage and in the theatre, but eventually grew dissatisfied with the roles in which he was being cast. Miracle in Harlem (1948) was one of the films he appeared in during this period. He also appeared in Souls of Sin (1949), one of the last race films, which saw him sing and act. Realizing that most of the parts he could play were stereotypes and derivative due to racism prevalent throughout American culture at the time, Greaves looked into African-American history. Seeing that his opportunities would be limited were he to continue to stay in America and focus on his planned course of acting, Greaves tried his hand at movie making, electing to move to Canada and study at the National Film Board of Canada.
After six years working in various stages of production from director to editing, Greaves found himself behind the camera as director and editor of a film called Emergency Ward, which focused on the goings-on of a hospital emergency room on a Sunday evening.
Freelance documentaries and television work
As the 1960s saw the rise of the Civil Rights Movement, Greaves returned to The United States to participate in the ongoing discourse regarding African-Americans and their place in society. Based on his work on Emergency Ward, he was hired by both the United Nations and the film division of the United States Information Agency (USIA) to make several documentaries, the two most acclaimed of which were Wealth of a Nation, an examination of personal freedom as a key boon to America's strength, and The First World Festival of Negro Arts (1968), which documented the 1966 World Festival of Black Arts, a celebration of both African and African-American culture.
In 1969, following soon after the 1968 assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., public broadcasting syndicate National Educational Television (a direct predecessor to the modern-day PBS) began to air a show called Black Journal with a mission to present news by African Americans, for African Americans, and about African Americans. After a tumultuous opening during the first few tapings, the NET network promoted Greaves from co-host to executive producer of the show. Greaves ran the show until 1970 winning an Emmy award for himself and the show in 1969.
After Black Journal
In 1970, after working on Black Journal for three years, Greaves opted to leave television to focus on film making. In 1971 he released a film titled Ali, the Fighter, which focused on Muhammad Ali's first attempt to regain his professional boxing heavyweight title. Greaves then went on to produce and make films for various commissions and government agencies, including NASA and The Civil Service Commission.
After this, Greaves produced numerous works, including From These Roots, Nationtime: Gary, Where Dreams Come True, Booker T.Washington: Life and Legacy, Frederick Douglass: An American Life, Black Power in America: Myth or Reality?, The Deep North, and Ida B. Wells: A Passion for Justice, which was narrated by Nobel Prize in Literature and Pulitzer Prize winning author Toni Morrison. Greaves' 1972 documentary Nationtime centered on the National Black Political Convention in Gary, Indiana, and was narrated by Sidney Poitier. An 80-minute restored version was released in 2020 with funding from Jane Fonda and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.