Trivia

In 1939 he became the National Film Board's first film commissioner.

He was instrumental in establishing and developing the National Film Board of Canada. To recognize this, in 1972 the Governor General of Canada contacted the government of Canada to negotiate an amendment to the Order of Canada's constitution to allow Grierson, who was not a Canadian citizen, to be appointed a Companion of the Order of Canada. The Cabinet scheduled a meeting to formalize this change and a telegram was prepared to be sent to Grierson as soon as the necessary documents had been authorized. Unfortunately, Grierson died one day before the Cabinet was scheduled to approve his appointment. Since posthumous appointments cannot be made, Grierson was never appointed to the Order. In recognition of this tragic delay, the Order of Canada was significantly altered during the 1970s to remove the bureaucratic delay for honorary appointments, and since that time non-citizens like Nelson Mandela and Václav Havel have been appointed honorary companions.

Honorary president of the Oberhausen International Short Film Festival.

In 1926 he helped prepare Le cuirassé Potemkine (1925) for American audiences.

He arrived in the United States in 1924 because of a grant from the Rockefellerl Foundation. His research was in the field of social sciences.

Brother of fellow documentary directors Marion Taylor and Ruby Grierson.

Worked with UNESCO in Paris.

First person to use the term "documentary", in reviewing Robert J. Flaherty's Moana (1926).

Attended Glasgow University.

Co-founded--with John Baxter (I) and Michael Balcon--Group 3, a British production company, in 1951.

Actually born in the Cotton Mill village of Deanston in the Parish of Kilmadock which then was in Southern Perthshire. His father was Headmaster of the village school owned by the Mill.