He also appeared in a number of films, including Sombrero (1953), Around the World in 80 Days (1956), Holiday for Lovers (1959), Ship of Fools (1965), and The Proud and the Damned (1972).

He was a Visiting professor of Dance at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania for the remainder of his life.

On December 17, Lancaster's Sunday News reported that Greco "was in terrible pain" because the "staph spread and formed a mass on his backbone."

Well enough to be transferred from the hospital's intensive care unit to its skilled nursing facility later that month, he died from heart failure at his home in Lancaster at the age of 82 on December 31, 2000.

[4][5] José Greco died of heart failure in his home in Lancaster, on the last day of the 20th century.