THE SPECIAL OLYMPICS
THE SPECIAL OLYMPICS
Eunice Kennedy Shriver
This is another great human story of Hope. A film I directed about Eunice Kennedy Shriver and the Special Olympics for the BBC.
President Kennedy had four sisters of which Eunice was the third eldest. Eunice had an unbreakable bond with her eldest sister Rosemary (Rosie) and great empathy with others who had similar learning difficulties.
Often Eunice would become extremely angry at the way the authorities treated Rosie, neglecting, ignoring and segregating her.
But Eunice was a keen sports woman and saw that Rosie was similarly motivated and that in sport Rosie could realize her potential for growth and development so founded the ‘Special Olympics. ’This became the largest sports organization for people with intellectual and physical disabilities.
Eunice said at the 1987 Opening Ceremony in Indiana to 4000 athletes, from 70 countries, ‘You have the right to play on any playing field, study at any school, hold a job, the right to be anybody’s neighbor and that we must all recognise the healing power of the human spirit’.
So, the ‘Special Olympics’ was coming to Glasgow and Janet Street Porter, then Head of Youth and Entertainment at the BBC asked me if I’d direct a sixty-minute film for the corporation, using the same in-depth techniques Pelicula had successfully used in our other sports films.
Our first location was Prague, and she would send a BBC film crew out from London to join me there.
Her idea was that we would select six athletes, then visit them in their own country and film their backgrounds, training methods and gold winning potential – completing their stories when they came to Glasgow to compete.
The Prague athlete selected was a very dangerous arsonist andwithout any cure, was confined to a Special School. However, the head of the school was a keen cyclist, and noticed thatwhenever he got his own bike out, the boy became very excited. So, the Head gave him his bike and that seemed to be the answer. The arsonist loved his two-wheel therapymachine, even taking it to bed with him. After a time, this young man trained so hard that he could have become a professional cyclist and all thoughts of setting fire to places seemed to be cured. This reminded me of Eunice Kennedy and her thoughts about her sister Rosie.
The Duke of Edinburgh officiated at the opening ceremonyand Whitney Houston sang ‘One Moment in Time’, the chosen ‘Special Olympic’ theme for that year. Not only appropriate, but also creating a fabulous atmosphere and a few tears.
Read about the above story and many more in my autobiography,
‘Shaping the Shadows: A Picture Maker’s Story’
https://inkd.in/eQA8hpg5 https://inkd.in/eTKev5a8
