Jonathan Greene

 SERVING UP BANANAS laced with marijuana to rhesus monkeys on an island in the Caribbean - all in a day's work for Jon Greene.

Well, not exactly, but Jon was the cameraman recording the effect of this unusual repast on the unsuspecting primates as part of a study. Jon, who spent most of his life behind a camera, mostly with Philadelphia's Channel 10, had been hired for this project by a researcher from the Dorothea Dix psychiatric hospital in Raleigh, N.C.

It involved lugging heavy cameras onto the island off Puerto Rico, tramping through the jungle, dodging an irate ape that threatened to attack, and setting up the cameras to record the pot-eating monkeys' reactions compared with a control group that got a regular monkey diet.

Jon never found out what the experiment proved, and probably didn't really care. He did his job with his customary efficiency and attention to detail and that was that.

Jonathan C. Greene, whose cameras - first with film, then with video and ultimately digital - recorded many aspects of the life of the planet, from Eagles games to the Mummers, to the poignant faces of leftover Jews in a Romanian village devastated by the Nazi Holocaust; a man of many talents; a musician and artist and a loving family man with a frisky sense of humor, died Thursday of heart failure. He was 71 and lived in Bala Cynwyd.

One of Jon's more dramatic projects was the documentary "The Last Jews of Radauti," undertaken with prominent Philadelphia-born photographer Laurence Salzmann. They spent time in the small Romanian village, which was nearly wiped out in the Holocaust. While Salzmann photographed the mostly elderly residents going about their daily activities, Jon Greene did the filming.

Another of his projects was "Who's Having Fun," a 1983 documentary about the Mummers also undertaken with Salzmann. Jon actually marched in a New Year's Mummers Parade, tootling his baritone horn.

The project was funded by a grant from the National Endowment of the Arts, and aired on PBS in 1981. (You can see it on YouTube.)

While working on a master's degree at Temple University, Jon filmed a documentary on the late rabbi and folksinger Shlomo Carlebach. He also made a documentary on South Jersey farmers.

Other highlights of his career were covering the Eagles, including the 1981 Super Bowl XV in New Orleans, and traveling to the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville, France.

Jon worked for Channel 10, first for CBS10 then NBC10, for more than 30 years, as a cameraman and editor.

"He was highly sought after as an editor," his family said. "He often had more colleagues asking for him to edit their news segments than he had time at the station."

Jon covered news stories as a cameraman for the first 20 years of his time at the station, and spent the last 10 years as an editor.

He was dispatched to Washington, D.C., during the Gulf War, 1990-91, enabling one of his children visiting the station to say, "My daddy is covering the Gulf War."

Jon had a reporter's instinct for the news. His wife, Laurel Geers, said they were driving home to Bala Cynwyd from Philadelphia one day when police cars and rescue wagons roared past them heading for the city.

Jon wheeled the car around and followed the emergency vehicles into the city, where they found a building collapse. He phoned the station with the tip, and a film crew was dispatched to cash in on the scoop.

Jon was born in Philadelphia to Al Greene and the former Helen Crane. He grew up in West Philadelphia and Yeadon, Delaware County. He attended both Central High School in Philly and Yeadon High School. He went on to the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned a bachelor's degree in English. He then completed graduate work in filmmaking at Temple University, where he made the documentary on Shlomo Carlebach.

Jon later studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and the Main Line Art Center.

He painted landscapes, still lifes and portraits in oil, and crafted sculpture in his basement studio at his home. He would play opera music and puff on a cigar while he worked.

"I knew he was down there working if I came home and heard opera music," his wife said.

Jon's artistry was mostly for his own pleasure. He rarely exhibited any of his work.

He would visit the Montessori school where his wife taught and once a year played his baritone horn for the children. He would play kids' songs and show the students how the horn worked.

"He loved kids," his wife said. "He would say that he might have missed his calling. He would liked to have been a teacher."

"He was very dependable," his wife said. "I could always count on Jon."

"He had a great sense of humor," his daughter Hannah Greene said. "He could be very goofy and also very serious. People loved to talk to him because of his wisdom and perspective on things."

Besides his wife and daughter, he is survived by another daughter, Emma Greene; a sister, Michele Greene; and a brother, Stuart Greene.

Services: Will be private.

Donations in his memory may be made to the Main Line Art Center, mainlineart.org, or the Magee Rehabilitation Hospital, mageerehab.org.

JOHN F. MORRISON
Daily News Staff Writer morrisj@phillynews.com, 215-854-5573