SHEILA W.

BANANI

SANTA MONICA, CALIFORNIA SHEILA@SHEILABANANI.COM WWW.SHEILABANANI.COM

25 December 2012 Dawn Breakers International Film Festival Dear friends: Our family was very pleased to learn that this years Dawn Breakers Intl Film Festival, to be held in Switzerland, will be honoring my father, Charles Wolcott. This is the 25th year since his passing in Haifa, Israel in January 1987. My father and mother became Baha'is in Los Angeles, California in August 1938 after being introduced to the Faith when they were living in New York and he was working as an arranger on radio for such big bands as Benny Goodman and Tommy Dorsey. Becoming fascinated with Walt Disneys animated films he decided to move the family to the West Coast (my sister Marsha and I were still little) and he became head of the Disney Studios Music department as well as conducting the orchestras and composing music for Disney films. During the early period just prior to World War II, he traveled with Disney and a few other artists to South America to absorb the cultures and bring back ideas for Disney films such as Saludos Amigos and The Three Caballeros. These films were nominated for an Academy Award (Oscar) for best musical score and song. He also worked on Fantasia, Pinocchio and Bambi. In 1950 he moved to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studio where he worked as General Music Director, heading the Music Department at MGM, and conducted the studio orchestra and composed film music for such movies as Dream Wife, Blackboard Jungle, Key Witness and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. While working in Hollywood he composed musical settings to Baha'i prayers such as From the Sweet-Scented Streams, O Thou By Whose Name, and Blessed is the Spot. His Baha'i service began with appointments to various U.S. national committees as well as election to the Los Angeles Baha'i Assembly (1948-1960). In 1953 he was elected to the U.S. National Spiritual Assembly on which he served as vice-chairman. In 1960 he was elected secretary of the U.S. National Assembly and resigned his position as head of the Music Department at MGM and moved, with wife Harriett, to Wilmette, Illinois to take up his duties as secretary. When he was elected to the International Baha'i Council in the Holy Land for a two-year term (1961-1963), he and my mother did not realize that their service in the Faith would keep them there for another 26 years until his death in 1987, since he was elected to the first Universal House of Justice in 1963 and re-elected in subsequent terms. He is buried on Mount Carmel in the Baha'i Cemetery after a half-century of service to the Faith. With loving Baha'i regards, Sheila