"When You Wish Upon a Star": The Musical Legacy of Utah Composer Leigh Harline

BY SANDRA DAWN BRIMHALL AND DAWN RETTA BRIMHALL

Gene Simmons, the Israeli-American rock star, has written that when he first heard the song “When You Wish upon a Star,” he “could barely speak English but I knew the words were true. Anybody can have what they want, the world and life can give its rewards to anyone.” 1 To many, like Simmons, the song is the encapsulation of the American dream. Leigh Adrian Harline, who composed the melody for “When You Wish upon a Star,” embodied that dream. He was born on March 26, 1907, in Salt Lake City, the youngest and thirteenth child of Swedish converts to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Carl Ersson Harline and Johanna Mathilda Petersson. 2 As a member of a large immigrant family, Harline knew well the initiative and hard work that were required to build a new life in a strange land. From an early age, he demonstrated exceptional musical talent and, despite the early death of his mother, he persisted in his musical training and honed his skills. When he reached adulthood, at the start of the Great Depression, he moved to California where he doggedly pursued his dream of becoming a successful composer in another “promised land.” Harline’s success rested on many things: the opportunities available in twentieth-century Utah, the technological innovations of radio and film, and, not least, his own talent.

Leigh’s parents, who met as teenagers while working on the same farm, were married on October 23, 1881, in Simtuna, Vastmanland, Sweden. After their marriage, Carl abandoned farm work, possibly to improve his social standing, and joined the army. Soldiers, who trained with the army for only a few weeks each year, were entitled to a small house, an acre of land, and a little cash. Carl supplemented his army pay by moonlighting as a shoemaker and by working for the farmer who owned the property where the house stood. It was the custom for a soldier to take on the name of the house where he resided and since the house was named Harlän, Carl changed his surname from Ersson to Harlän, and later, to Harline. 3 Carl and Mathilda’s first child, Karl, died in 1882 when he was a year old. Four other children, all daughters, were also born in Sweden. Mathilda joined the LDS church in May 1888, despite the objections of Carl and her family. Carl was baptized approximately two years later. 4

In 1891 the family immigrated to the United States with their four daughters against the wishes of both their families. Mathilda’s motivation for the move appears to have been primarily religious while Carl’s incentives seem to have been a mixture of family, religious, and economic factors. 5 Mass emigration from Sweden to the United States began in the mid- 1840s, slacking off during the Civil War and resuming afterward. In the 1880s more than 330,000 Swedish immigrants moved to the United States and the numbers continued to

remain high as late as 1890. The 1910 U.S. Census records show that more than 650,000 persons in the country were Swedish-born. Most Swedish immigrants came to America due to economic pressures at home and the often exaggerated promise of opportunity abroad. Approximately 8,000 of those immigrants, like Carl and Mathilda, were LDS converts who settled in Utah. 6

The Harlines arrived in Salt Lake City on May 12, 1891. Two days later, their two-year-old daughter Anna Maria, who had been ill during the last part of the journey, died from measles. Carl was so devastated from her death that he never completely recovered. The couple’s son Oscar, who was born three months after Anna Maria’s death, wrote, “It was a terrible experience for a young family to have to encounter, no means, poor of this world’s goods. . . . And one must also remember that they could not speak a word of English.” 7

Carl and Mathilda moved ten times before finally purchasing five acres of land and building a home, located at 3405 South 1100 East, in 1905. Leigh was born in this home—a two-story yellow brick structure that had a parlor, dining room, bedroom, kitchen, and pantry on the ground floor and two bedrooms and closets upstairs. There was no furnace, electricity, telephone, or indoor bathroom. 8 The couple taught their children to work hard and to be honest and dependable. Religion was also emphasized in their home. Oscar recalled, “Mother was a more serious person, very good-looking, very religious, and a wonderful housekeeper. Father was a happy-go-lucky sort, always singing or whistling—he had a good voice.” 9 Olive enjoyed watching her father mend shoes and she recalled that he was “a very musical whistler” who often whistled Swedish tunes when his mouth was free of nails. 10

When Leigh Harline was six years old, he began taking piano lessons on the family piano, which had been furnished by the generosity of his oldest sister who was married and working. He soon became so proficient that he accompanied his first-grade classmates as they marched in school programs. 11 According to his niece, Jo-An Harline Lyman, “He enjoyed playing the piano so much that his mother had to ask him to stop practicing and go out and play.” Harline, however, later recalled that when he was young he tried to evade practicing until he became fascinated with composing. He also acknowledged that his “aptitude for music was inherited.” 12

As a teenager, Harline studied piano under J. Spencer Cornwall, who later became the conductor of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. 13 Local newspapers from the period chronicled the young man’s growing reputation as a musician. The “Tattle of the Tuneful” column in the Salt Lake Telegram reported on November 1, 1919, that Harline accompanied students from the Gustav Schuster Music College during a program presented in an LDS chapel. 14 On May 9, 1920, the Salt Lake Tribune listed him as one of the soloists who performed at a free concert held at the Salt Lake Ladies’ Literary Club. 15 The same newspaper reported on another occasion that “Master Leigh Harline” would perform at Whitmer Hall during the Schuster Music College’s annual concert. 16 In addition to performing in these more established venues, the young Harline also played for local audiences via the new medium of radio (KDYL), which aired its first broadcast in May 1922. 17

Harline attended Granite High School from 1921 to 1923, where he demonstrated not only his musical talent but also his initiative and leadership skills by organizing his own dance orchestra when he was fourteen years old. 18 He belonged to both the school orchestra and band and he was also enrolled in an Advanced Placement Music class. The orchestra teacher, Adolph Brox, was a musician of high repute who had his own studio in Sugar House where he taught violin, clarinet, and saxophone. Under Brox’s direction, the Granite orchestra “was pronounced by many critics as the best orchestra in the state” with its twenty-eight players. 19

On April 22, 1922, tragedy struck the Harline family when Mathilda passed away after a series of strokes. Leigh’s older brother, LeRoy, wrote of his mother’s death: “My beloved mother, my best pal, passed away. Home was home no longer.” 20 Carl died seven years later on October 31, 1929. 21 The death of Leigh’s mother when he

was only fifteen years old affected his academic performance. His high school transcript reveals that prior to Mathilda’s death, he received B’s in all of his classes, except music, where he received all A’s. After her death, his grades all dropped to C’s, except in music where he continued to earn top marks. 22

Although Harline left high school at age sixteen without receiving a diploma, he continued to actively pursue his musical studies as well as his dream of becoming a composer. Harline demonstrated his versatility as a musician on January 20, 1925, when he was selected to be part of a string trio that performed at the C. G. Conn Music Store’s golden anniversary celebration held in downtown Salt Lake City. 23 Then in October 1925, Harline’s dance orchestra made its professional debut at a local night club. The Salt Lake Telegram reported: “Leigh Harline’s orchestra opened an engagement last night at the Black Cat, 341 South Main Street. Mr. Harline, leader of the Collegian orchestra, is a native of Salt Lake and well known composer and pianist.” 24

A Deseret News article provided additional evidence of Harline’s developing talent as a composer when it announced that the Salt Lake LDS Grant Stake’s quarterly conference, held on December 20, 1925, would feature a “Christmas anthem” composed by Harline, the stake organist, with words written by Ruth May Fox, “a poet of high local standard.” The News described Harline as “a well-known local young musician,” but his work with Fox—who would become the general president of the LDS Young Ladies’ Mutual Improvement Association in 1929—also spoke to his rising reputation. 25

Harline resumed his formal education when he enrolled at the University of Utah as a non-matriculated student for the academic year 1926 to 1927 and as a freshman from 1927 to 1928. According to his college transcript, his classes were predominantly in music, 26 some of them only “open to graduates and students of ability and training.” 27 Despite the difficulty of these music classes and the fact that he was an underclassman, Harline earned excellent grades, demonstrating prodigious talent. He financed his education from the money he received from his orchestra, which continued to play in local venues in Salt Lake City. 28 Harline was prominent in university musical circles, and in 1926 his musical comedy Blind Man’s Bluff, which he wrote with Beth Whitney, was performed by members of the Chi Omega sorority. 29 The people and institutions of Salt Lake City provided the young Harline with opportunities to develop his skills, work across musical genres, and obtain an education.

Harline left the university before graduating in late 1927 or early 1928 and moved to San Francisco. In a 1940 interview, Harline said his reason for leaving was that “he met a girl visiting from Los Angeles, promptly lost his heart, and followed her to the coast where they were married.” Jo-An Harline Lyman believes another reason he left Utah was that there were more opportunities for a music career in California. 30 According to family records, Harline married Catherine Collette Palmer, a UCLA student, in 1928 in California. Palmer, who was born in Ohio about 1908, was the daughter of Byron and Maude Palmer, her father a physician in Venice, California. 31 As time would tell, California—especially with its growing film industry— did provide favorable circumstances for the Utah musician.

Harline began his career in California as an organist, performing for KFRC radio in San Francisco. 32 During the years from 1927 to 1937, San Francisco was an important origination point for many national radio broadcasts. In 1926 Don Lee, a wealthy automobile dealer, purchased KFRC. The following year, he also purchased KHJ radio in Los Angeles. Lee spared no expense to make the stations the finest in the nation and both had a large staff of announcers, musicians, singers and entertainers that allowed the stations to operate continuously without seeking outside talent. Besides Leigh, KFRC launched the careers of other notable performers such as Merv Griffin and Art Linkletter. 33 Harline’s talent as a composer, as well as a musician, was recognized almost immediately, including in his hometown. The Salt Lake Telegram reported: “Leigh Harline . . . has achieved wide recognition in San Francisco as a composer of popular songs. . . . Mr. Harline’s latest composition is ‘I Gotta Tell Someone,’ published by a San Francisco Music firm.” 34

The importance of national technological networks to Harline’s professional growth became increasingly clear with the development of the Don Lee stations. On July 16, 1929, the Columbia Broadcast System (CBS) network, which had launched in 1927 and had no affiliates west of the Rockies, persuaded Don Lee to sign an affiliate agreement. KFRC and KHJ became the first CBS stations on the West Coast. 35 Sometime between August 1929 and July 1930, Harline left San Francisco and transferred to KHJ radio in Los Angeles. His multiple talents soon attracted the attention of the media in Southern California: “A radio organist, balladist, composer and singer—no wonder Leigh Harline made a hit with the radio fans of KHJ, Los Angeles. A good-looking chap is Leigh, and his wardrobe is one of the snappiest in radio land. He’s heard every day, making several appearances during operating time of the station.” 36 In 1932, Harline, still working for KHJ, provided the music for the first transcontinental broadcast to emanate from Los Angeles. 37

Disney created Mickey Mouse in 1928 and, by 1929, the cartoon character had achieved national recognition. Mickey Mouse’s “barnyard origins,” cheerfulness, and determination made him an “ideal mascot” for a nation struggling through disaster. 38 The social and economic difficulties of the Great Depression subtly influenced Disney’s creative output, but more directly, they provided his studio with personnel—artists who welcomed the opportunity for regular employment. Disney’s genius was not restricted to his considerable talents; he also “displayed an uncanny knack” for recognizing the gifts of his employees and cultivating those talents to “elevate the quality of the films.” 39 Leigh Harline was among those people.

In 1932 Disney hired Harline to work in his studio’s music department with Frank Churchill. Disney brought Churchill on in 1931 to replace Carl Stalling, who had been the studio’s music director and artist-in-residence until he left in 1930. Stalling briefly returned to Disney in 1932, and the three men—Stalling, Churchill, and Harline—composed more than fifty scores for the studio’s Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphonies shorts during the first half of the 1930s. Harline’s musical sophistication became apparent almost immediately so Disney assigned him to work on some of the more “musically ambitious” shorts. One of the first projects that Leigh scored alone was the 1933 Pied Piper, a retelling of the famous myth. He was also the composer for the music in the Old Mill and Music Land. 40

According to the composer and author Ross Care, although Churchill and Harline were both “consummate melodists,” their musical styles were as different as their “personal and musical backgrounds.” Churchill, who was an accomplished pianist, composed music that could be performed on the piano and that you “could whistle or hum easily.” Although Harline was not as talented a pianist, he had a “broader musical education” that enabled him to compose more complex music with melodies and structures that could not be communicated with “just two hands and a piano.” Wilfred Jackson, a Disney producer and director, who worked with both composers, observed that with Harline’s music, “you mostly just had to believe that Leigh knew what he was doing and that it would turn out all right in the end, and, as time went on, we found out that it always did.” 41

Harline’s compositions for the Silly Symphonies not only turned out, they are now ranked among “some of the finest, and most inventive music ever created in Hollywood.” 42 The success of the Silly Symphonies made Walt Disney, and not just Mickey Mouse, a box office star, and, as a result, the major studios clamored for a chance to distribute Disney’s productions. 43 This enabled Disney to build his animation empire that continues to thrive today.

As Harline’s career blossomed, his family also grew. On December 4, 1930, Catherine gave birth to a baby girl the couple named Karen. Two years later, on December 17, 1932, another daughter, Gretchen, was born. According to the 1930 census, they were renting an expensive apartment in downtown Los Angeles for one hundred dollars per month that, ironically, had no radio. 44 Catherine’s personality and her talents complemented those of Leigh. According to Gretchen:

Like Catherine, Leigh also enjoyed literature and he was reputed to have a fine collection of first editions, among them works of D. H. Lawrence, Aldous Huxley, and Ernest Hemingway. He also enjoyed badminton and was an “amateur sculptor of ability.” 46 During July and August 1953, Leigh and other Hollywood elites such as Edward G. Robinson, Lionel Barrymore, Claudette Colbert, Van Johnson, Arlene Dahl, Clifton Webb, Ginger Rogers, Fred MacMurray, Deborah Kerr, Ira Gershwin, Harpo Marx, Henry Fonda, and Olivia de Havilland demonstrated their talents as painters and sculptors at the Festival of Arts held in Laguna Beach. 47 According to Karen, Leigh also loved gardening and he was particularly fond of roses. 48 Family members recall that Leigh owned a blue and white Japanese bowl—four feet in diameter—that the actress Ruth Warrick liked to sit in before she began a new film because she thought it brought her good luck. “Daddy didn’t like it when people sat in that bowl,” Karen said. 49

Harline’s success with Disney resulted in his receiving assignments to compose music for the studio’s first two animated features, Snow White and Pinocchio. Churchill had originally been assigned to Snow White but when he was unable to finish the project, Harline and another composer, Paul J. Smith, were called in to finish the job. In response to an interviewer’s question about this assignment, Harline replied that blending his music with the work of the previous composer and avoiding “any hint of patchwork” was a difficult task to undertake. 50

When Snow White was released on December 21, 1937, the American journalist and writer Westbrook Pegler applauded the film, calling it the “happiest event since the armistice.” 51 Pegler and others viewed Snow White as a “pleasant diversion” from the troubles of the 1930s, especially the recession of 1937 and 1938. 52 In 1938, Harline, Churchill, and Smith were nominated for an Academy Award for the best musical score for Snow White.

The music for Pinocchio was entirely Harline’s creation and not a combined effort with other composers. According to the Disney historian J. B. Kaufman, Pinocchio is a rarity among the Disney features of this era because it is the work of a single composer. “Harline’s musical statement in Pinocchio is as wide-ranging as the film itself.” 53 Moreover, Harline and lyrist Ned Washington, along with the other musical directors, were allowed a certain amount of latitude in deciding the placement within the film of the songs, although Disney was “deeply involved in the music.” 54

When Pinocchio was released in February 1940, the New York Times hailed it as the “happiest event since the war,” and described it as being “superior to Snow White in every respect but one: its score.” 55 Surprisingly, many critics echoed the same sentiment, although they “heaped superlatives” on other aspects of the film. 56 Yet, despite the negative reviews, “the songs were being taken up by singers and orchestras and ‘When You Wish upon a Star’ was beginning to create its niche in American popular music.” 57

In 1941 Harline and Washington won an Academy Award for the best original song, “When You Wish upon a Star,” for Pinocchio. Harline, Washington, and Smith also won another Academy Award for the best original score for the same film. Washington attributed the popularity of the song to its universality, which “allowed you to supply your own wish.” He also said that Pinocchio contained “every entertainment value.” 58

Cliff Edwards, who played Jiminy Cricket, Pinocchio’s “official conscience,” sang “When You Wish upon a Star” in the film. Edward’s rendition of the song has since become a classic.

For example, another musical legend, Neil Diamond, once said, “There’s nobody who is going to top Jiminy Cricket’s version of ‘When You Wish upon a Star.”’ Although Diamond had performed Harline’s song, he joked that he was “resigned to playing second bill to an insect—a cartoon insect at that.” Like Gene Simmons, Diamond also found the song inspiring in his youth: “I saw Pinocchio when I was a little boy about Pinocchio’s age and it left a really deep impression on me as a kid. To me, it was my story, the story of a little boy who was trying to find himself and become a real person and a real man.” 59 The song impacted not only performers such as Simmons and Diamond but the common man as well. A Methodist pastor, Dr. Paul E. White, wrote in a 1975 newspaper essay:

Pinocchio experienced outstanding business the first week of its release but after that box office sales slowed. 61 It has been suggested that one of the reasons for Pinocchio’s lukewarm success was that viewers rejected any “Disney feature that wasn’t a duplicate of Snow White.” 62 Pinocchio cost the studio $2.6 million but only $1 million of that outlay was recovered on its first release. 63 When the domestic market proved unreliable, Disney looked to foreign markets, specifically, Sweden, Holland, and France to boost sales. As hostilities escalated across Europe, however, Disney abandoned any European ambitions. He was reported to have originally been “very, very depressed” regarding the film’s 1940 box office returns. 64 Pinocchio finally made a profit with its 1945 reissue, and many today consider it among the “finest Disney hand-animated films that’s ever been made. 65

In a 1971 interview, Disney’s animation director Wolfgang (Woolie) Reitherman recalled that when “When You Wish upon a Star” won the Academy Award for best song, everyone at the studio “realized that it was . . . socially significant. Walt decided that the tune was not only a reflection of the optimism that characterized the end of the depression, but was also representative that he liked to dream big, to attempt the impossible. As time went by, the song became one of Walt’s favorites.” 66 Disney apparently had great respect for Harline and his abilities as evidenced by another recollection of Reitherman. On one occasion, “Walt listened to some music Leigh Harline had written for a film and he didn’t like what he heard. They had a long discussion about the score and Harline began to get upset. ‘Look Walt,’ he finally said. ‘Could you do any better?’ ‘No,’ Walt said, ‘but you can.’” 67

It seemed with the success of the Silly Symphonies and Snow White and the limited success of Pinocchio and Fantasia (which were released at almost the same time) that Disney could do no wrong. However, by late summer of 1941, trouble brewed at the Disney studio when many of the animators who worked on Pinocchio went on strike. The studio’s financial woes, caused by high expenditures and low profits, changed some workers’ perception of Disney from a “folksy cartoonist to a worry-racked capitalist.” The employees also complained of pay inequalities, limited bonuses, and inadequate screen credits. Most likely, the unionization of Hollywood entertainment workers in the 1930s was also an important factor. The strike lasted for nine weeks with the result that many of the animators quit Disney for other organizations and new projects. 68

Whether or not the strike directly impacted Harline is unknown, but he also left Disney during this time to freelance at other studios, including Columbia, Paramount, Twentieth Century Fox and Goldwyn-RKO. 69 In July 1942, the Salt Lake Tribune reported that Harline had been signed by producer William Cagney as the musical director for the first United Artists film in which James Cagney, the famous actor, starred. 70 Harline’s music was also performed by notable singers such as Frank Sinatra and Shirley Temple. 71 Besides composing the musical scores for films, he often conducted the studio orchestras. 72 He also wrote for symphonic orchestras. Harline demonstrated his sense of humor in one of his compositions, the Civic Center Suite, which was performed in 1941 in Cleveland, Ohio. The suite’s four movements were entitled “Council Meeting, “The D. A. Calls It Luncheon,” “Taxpayers,” and “Election Night.” According to a 1971 article, an adding machine clicked away with the orchestra during the “Taxpayers” movement, acting “as a rhythmic counterpoint to the wailing motif of the taxpayers.” 73

That same sense of fun apparently enriched Harline’s personal life. Although Leigh’s colleagues described him as “quiet and studious,” his daughter Gretchen wrote that his success “soon propelled him and his family into the world of Hollywood celebrity. . . . The Harline home was filled with music and parties, artists, authors, actors and friends.” 74 Gretchen recalled that during one party, she and her sister Karen,

Besides the parties, the Harline girls enjoyed visiting their father at the movie studios, where they met other celebrities such as Cary Grant, Myrna Loy, Fred Astaire, and Shirley Temple. According to Jo-An Harline Lyman, Cary Grant came to one of the Harline parties, and Karen and Gretchen made such a fuss over him that Leigh was embarrassed. 76

On one occasion, Catherine was called upon to testify in court for one of her movie star friends. When Joan Blondell divorced her husband in 1935, the San Bernardino County Star reported: “Mrs. Leigh Harline, girlhood chum of the actress in the days when Joan was a travelling vaudeville performer—before she became ‘Miss Dallas of 1925’—accompanied her to court, and corroborated the actress’ testimony.” 77 When Blondell was in her early teens, her family temporarily gave up vaudeville and lived for eight months in Venice, California, the same community where Catherine was raised. The two women probably met during this short period that Blondell was able to regularly attend school. 78

Despite Leigh and Catherine’s affluence and glamorous lifestyle, all was not well between them. The couple, however, apparently hid their marital discord from their daughters. Gretchen wrote: “We had never heard a cross word, never heard any arguments. Then one day, my mother and daddy and their two best friends went away on what we thought was a vacation. We had no inkling of what was happening. Turns out they went to Reno and got quickie divorces. Mother came back to the house; daddy didn’t. He married the wife of his best friend.” 79

According to Clark County, Nevada, court and marriage records, it was Catherine and not Leigh who filed for the divorce in Las Vegas, which was granted on February 6, 1942. Leigh, who was listed as a resident of California, was not present but entered a written appearance before the court. The court, which expressly reserved jurisdiction relating to the support and custody of the couple’s minor children, granted Catherine custody of Karen and Gretchen. Three weeks after the divorce, on February 28, 1942, Leigh married Catherine (Anne) Darby, a resident of Las Vegas, Nevada. Their marriage application stated that Darby had obtained a divorce from her husband, who was unidentified, the day before on February 27, 1942. Although Catherine filed for the divorce, the fact that Leigh and Ann were married so soon after the Harline divorce was final indicates there was some factual basis to Gretchen’s story. 80

The divorce was extremely hard on Leigh’s first wife and his daughters. Gretchen recalled that her “Bohemian mother was never happy again.” Karen and Gretchen, however, apparently held no hard feelings toward their stepmother. “When you saw my daddy and Anne together, you knew they had to be together.” Catherine took her daughters and moved to New York, where she enrolled them in the Hewlett School for Girls, located in East Islip, Long Island. Although Gretchen loved the boarding school, Karen did not. 81

The first year after the divorce, the girls visited their father in California during their Easter, summer, and Christmas vacations but after that, despite Leigh’s protests, they only visited during the summers. According to Gretchen, her mother had refused to accept alimony and she could not afford for her daughters to travel to California more than once a year. Karen remembers her father as a modest man who didn’t like to talk about himself. “Dad was the nicest human I ever knew. He never swore. He was easygoing, sweet.” She also recalled that Leigh did most of his composing on the piano at home. “He would come home from the studio, presumably with an assignment and work on the piece all night so it would be ready by morning.” On one of her trips from New York City to Los Angeles, Karen encountered Fred Astaire on the train and he danced with her in the club car. 82

When she was a teenager, Karen asked her father to attend her parties. “He would come and play the piano. I was probably the only teenager who wanted her dad at parties.” In remembrance of her father, Karen has collected hundreds and hundreds of Pinocchios. 83 Leigh’s talents were also popular at Harline family reunions, which he faithfully attended every year in Utah. Jo-An Harline Lyman recalled, “He would compose a song for everyone’s name by assigning a note for each letter. He was always really friendly and very kind.” 84

Despite the upheaval in his personal life, Harline continued to succeed in the world of Hollywood music. In 1943, he was nominated for two more Academy Awards. The first was for the best musical score of a dramatic or comedy picture for Samuel Goldwyn’s Pride of the Yankees. The film, which starred Gary Cooper, Teresa Wright, and Babe Ruth, celebrated the life of Lou Gehrig. The second was for the best scoring of a musical picture for the Columbia Pictures film You Were Never Lovelier, which starred Fred Astaire, Rita Hayworth, and Adolphe Menjou. The next year, Harline was nominated twice again for the scores of The Sky’s the Limit, a RKO musical comedy starring Fred Astaire and Joan Leslie, and for Johnny Come Lately. 85

Besides composing music for motion picture studios, Harline continued his association with radio. Another milestone for him was his appointment as the musical director for the Ford Summer Theater, a Los Angeles radio program that aired in the summer of 1946. Each week, Harline composed and conducted original music for the program that covered a wide range of American musical genres.” 86 Hoagy Carmichael and Ann Jeffreys appeared as the first guests on the show. 87 Long after Harline’s teenage performances on Salt Lake City stations or even his first years with Disney, the relatively new media platforms of radio and film continued to provide avenues for his professional growth.

In 1947 Harline returned to Utah in a professional capacity. An article in the Salt Lake Telegram reported that Utah’s upcoming centennial celebration was the theme for one of nine concerts to be presented by the Utah State Symphony, under the direction of the noted composer and conductor Werner Janssen. Janssen commissioned Harline to compose the score for one of the concerts, which would be based on the story of the Utah pioneers. 88 Jo-An Harline Lyman recalls that on the night of the concert, she and her parents met Leigh, who was wearing a tuxedo with long tails, at the Hotel Utah and then accompanied him to the Salt Lake Tabernacle. 89 Harline told a reporter from the Salt Lake Telegram, “In composing this suite I have not striven to depict the trek across the plains. . . . Rather, I have tried to portray the beginnings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the religious mood of the people at that time. . . .The suite is in three movements, titled ‘The Beginning,’ ‘The Martyrdom,’ and ‘The New Home.’” 90 Harline, who had been nurtured and educated in Utah, was well suited to the task of using his musical skills to interpret his religious heritage.

Sometime between 1942 and 1947, Leigh and Anne purchased a home in Portuguese Bend, Long Beach, where they were both active in community affairs. 91 On one occasion, Leigh was the guest conductor for a high school orchestra’s final concert at UCLA’s Royce Hall. The orchestra had been honored to represent California at a 1947 western musical education conference held in Salt Lake City. 92

In addition to the volunteer work he performed for his community, Harline also gave service, free of charge, to the LDS church, although he was no longer a practicing member. 93 In 1964 Wetzel Orson (Judge) Whitaker, head of Brigham Young University’s Department of Motion Pictures, commissioned Harline and Crawford Gates, another prominent LDS composer, to write and produce the musical score for a new LDS church film, Man’s Search for Happiness. The film was part of the church’s pavilion at the 1964 New York World’s Fair. According to a memorandum Gates wrote to two of his colleagues, Harline prepared the “musical sketches” and Gates orchestrated them for a full orchestra. During their collaboration in Los Angeles, the two composers worked eighteen hours a day. The completed score was then recorded by Hollywood motion picture studio musicians. 94

After the project was completed, Gates wrote Whitaker, expressing his appreciation for the assignment and the opportunity to work with Harline: “I found Leigh to be the wonderfully talented composer of his international reputation and a ‘top pro’ in every division of his work. It was a real thrill to see him do such a superlative job on the score, including the last sequence which his additional work and the build and excitement appropriate to the film’s structure and spirit.” 95 Gates also wrote to Harline, praising him for his talent as a composer and his “remarkable professional knowledge in the particular features of motion pictures.” He closed the letter with the words, “You could not have extended me more helpfulness and kind and gracious consideration . . . I want you to know that I am deeply grateful.” 96

Other voices in Utah also praised Harline for his musical talent and accomplishments. A Salt Lake Tribune article published during this period praised Harline as “Utah’s gift to Hollywood, where, for the past 30 years, he has been a leading composer of background scores for some of the best movies.” Likewise, the University of Utah Alumni Association honored Harline in 1963 with a distinguished award given for “outstanding achievements in music and civic affairs.” 97 A few years earlier, in 1959, the Salt Lake Tribune columnist Dan Valentine had paid homage to several Utah composers: “I’ll wager that Salt Lake City has more famous composers per capita than any other large city in the nation. . . . Of course, there’s Otto Hardin, who wrote the beautiful words for ‘Smoke Gets in Your Eyes,’ along with the lyrics of dozens of other musical comedy hits. Ever heard of ‘When You Wish upon a Star?’ It was written by Leigh Harline.” 98 Valentine’s column, as well as other newspaper articles, provide evidence that although Harline had not lived in Utah for thirty years, his activities and accomplishments were still considered “local” news.

Harline’s Hollywood achievements continued into the 1960s. Regarding his 1963 Harline Academy Award nomination for The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm, the News and Telegram described him both as “one of Salt Lake City’s most illustrious native sons,” and “among Hollywood’s top arrangers. 99 During his career, Harline was nominated for eight Academy Awards, and he won twice, for Pinocchio. Ross Care has written that the secret to Harline’s success was the originality of his work. “His music is distinctly non-derivative, possessing its own unique sound. As early as the mid-1930s, he had formulated a distinctively ‘American’ sound.” 100 The inspiration for some of Harline’s music may have come from the folk songs that his father whistled while repairing shoes so long ago. Care notes that the composer “had a genuine interest in folk melodies and harmonies. . . . Heard today, most of Harline’s compositions sound remarkably contemporary and undated, including even his earliest scores for Disney’s 1930s shorts.” 101

Harline also had a skill for blending music from different genres. In 1965, a Canadian newspaper noted that the Seven Faces of Dr. Lao was a “treat for the ear with Leigh Harline’s intriguing score, combining music of the American west and oriental themes.” 102 Jo-An Harline Lyman observed: “One of the amazing things about Leigh was that he could write the music for Pinocchio and then write something so different for The Enemy Below soundtrack.” 103 A few of the more famous movies that Harline scored include Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, The Bachelor and the Bobbysoxer, The Farmer’s Daughter, The Boy With Green Hair, The Remarkable Mr. Pennypacker, Warlock, and It’s a Wonderful Life, for which he wrote the stock or background music. The 1959 film Warlock, which starred Henry Fonda, Anthony Quinn, and Richard Widmark, is of particular interest to Utah residents because it was filmed in Moab and the setting for the movie was a Utah mining town in the 1880s.

It is difficult to say for certain how many songs Harline wrote during his lifetime. Various sources estimate that he composed music for approximately 154 films. His daughter, Gretchen, said that more than four hundred songs have been attributed to her father and that he was considered to be a genius. 104 However, “When You Wish upon a Star,” as well as the entire score for Pinocchio, is widely regarded as Harline’s true masterpiece and the American Film Institute has ranked the song as seventh in its list of the top one hundred songs from American movies. 105

“When You Wish upon a Star” is the Walt Disney Company’s “signature song”: Harline’s music sets the backdrop for the opening of many a Disney picture, as Jiminy Cricket’s song plays and the Disney castle appears. In 2001, Harline posthumously received the “Disney Legend’s

Award” as part of the celebration of the hundredth anniversary of Walt Disney’s birth. In a letter to his family, Roy E. Disney wrote: “This award is presented to individuals whose body of work has made a significant impact on Disney over the years. . . . Leigh is truly deserving of this award. . . . His dedication and contributions to the Disney Magic are invaluable.” 106 Both of his daughters Karen and Gretchen attended the awards ceremony. Fittingly, the song written by the son of Carl and Mathilda Harline plays a significant role at Christmas each year in Scandinavia. Every Christmas Eve since the late 1950s, Swedes have watched a Donald Duck Christmas special, From All of Us to All of You or Kalle Anka. At the end of the program, “When You Wish upon a Star” is sung in Swedish. 107

Leigh Harline passed away on December 10, 1969, at the age of sixty-two, in Long Beach from cancer. His early death “robbed Hollywood of a highly capable musician.” 108 The boy from Utah had not only fulfilled his childhood dream of becoming a composer, but also the hopes of his Swedish parents who had come to the United States seeking a better life for themselves and their children. Harline’s music succeeded beyond his dreams: it is beloved throughout the world and it has had a lasting impact on the American culture. On June 23, 2010, the Library of Congress selected “When You Wish upon a Star” as one of twenty-five recordings that has been “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.” 109

—Notes

1 The authors would like to thank Jo-An Harline Lyman, Karen Harline Adams, and Cathy Adams Lewis for their contributions to this article. “Stories,” KISS Monster, accessed December 19, 2016, kissmonster. com/song_stories/song_stories_gene_11.php, quoting Kerrang! no. 160, October 31, 1987.

2 Craig Harline, Conversions: Two Family Stories from the Reformation and Modern America (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011), 31–36. Johanna was known throughout her life by her middle name, Mathilda.

3 After the family arrived in Utah and the oldest daughters started attending school, they were told by their teachers that if they wanted to pronounce their name “Harleen,” they need to change the spelling of their name from “Harlän” to “Harline.” Harline, Conversions, 36.

4 Ibid., 34–36.

5 Ibid.

6 Craig Harline, Conversions, 35; “Swedish Immigration to North America,” Swenson Swedish Immigration Research Center, accessed December 20, 2016, augustana.edu/general-information/swenson-center. Much literature exists on the Scandinavian experience in Utah and the West. See, for instance, William Mulder, Homeward to Zion: The Mormon Migration from Scandinavia (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1957, 1985); William Mulder, “The Scandinavian Saga,” in The Peoples of Utah, ed. Helen Z. Papanikolas (Salt Lake City: Utah State Historical Society, 1976), 141–85; Rachel Gianni Abbott, “The Scandinavian Immigrant Experience in Utah, 1850–1920: Using Material Culture to Interpret Cultural Adaptation” (PhD diss., University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2013); Jennifer Eastman Atteberry, Up in the Rocky Mountains: Writing the Swedish Immigrant Experience (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2007).

7 Harline, Conversions, 35. During the voyage, Mathilda had to continually nurse Carl, who suffered from seasickness, as well as all four of her daughters, who caught the measles. FamilySearch database, accessed December 20, 2016, familysearch.org, s.v., Oscar Joseph Harline, KWCD-L6R.

8 Oscar Joseph Harline.

9 FamilySearch database, accessed December 20, 2016, familysearch.org, s.v., Oscar Joseph Harline, KW- CD-L6R.

10 FamilySearch database, accessed December 20, 2016, familysearch.org, s.v., Olive Geneva Harline, KW- CQ-PTS.

11 Deseret News, February 1, 2002.

12 Jo-An Harline Lyman, interview by Sandra Dawn Brimhall and Dawn Retta Brimhall, August 1, 2013, in possession of the authors; Ogden Standard Examiner, June 20, 1940. According to Leigh’s niece, Jo-An Harline Lyman, the Harlines were a musical family. Leigh’s sister, Hilda Harline Riches, wrote musical numbers for LDS church productions and she set poems to music for the missionaries from her congregation. Hilda’s daughters, Sylva Riches Luck and Grace Riches Parrish, were accomplished pianists, organists, vocalists, and choristers. One of Leigh’s nephews, Lloyd Harline, was also a prolific composer who wrote more than one thousand songs, including one for each family member.

13 Sheree Maxwell Bench, “‘True to My Own Convictions’: A Conversation with Carol Cornwall Madsen,” Mormon Historic Studies 9, no. 1 (2008): 89. According to J. Spencer Cornwall’s daughter, Carol Cornwall Madsen, he was the superintendent of music in both the Granite and Salt Lake City school districts before being appointed as the conductor of the Tabernacle Choir in 1935. Leigh attended Granite High School from 1921 to 1923 and this might have been how he became acquainted with Cornwall. Although some secondary sources state that Harline studied piano and organ with Cornwall, Madsen told the authors on July 18, 2016, that her father never taught organ, although he might have taught Harline piano. She said Harline’s name was well known among her family members but she knew of no sources regarding the two men’s student–teacher relationship.

14 Salt Lake Telegram, November 1, 1919.

15 Lyman, interview; Salt Lake Tribune, May 9, 1920.

16 Salt Lake Tribune, April 17, 1921.

17 Salt Lake Telegram, September 7, 1922; “Utah Broadcasting History,” Utah History Encyclopedia, accessed January 9, 2017, uen.org/utah_history_encyclopedia.

18 Deseret News, December 12, 1969.

19 Granite High School, Granitian, 1922 to 1923, Granite School District Office, Salt Lake City, Utah.

20 FamilySearch database, accessed December 20, 2016, familysearch.org, s.v., Joanna Mathilda Petersson, KWX-QTJ.

21 FamilySearch database, accessed December 20, 2016, familysearch.org, s.v., Carl Ersson Harline, KW- CX-QTK.

22 Granite High School academic transcripts for Leigh Harline, 1921 to 1923, Granite School District, Salt Lake City, Utah.

23 Salt Lake Telegram, January 15, 1925.

24 Salt Lake Telegram, October 27, 1925.

25 Deseret News, December 19, 1925. Ruth May Fox, a poet, writer, and advocate for women, was called by LDS Church President Heber J. Grant in 1929 to serve as the third general president of the LDS church’s Young Ladies’ Mutual Improvement Association.

26 Microfilm roll 8, University of Utah Student Permanent Records, 1914–1936, Acc0016, University of Utah Libraries, University Archives and Records Management, Salt Lake City, Utah. These music courses included Classic, Romantic and Modern Musical Form and Appreciation; Beginning, Intermediate and Advanced Harmony; Counterpoint; and Private Piano.

27 University of Utah Catalogue, 1927–1928, vol. 18, July 1927, Special Collections, J. Willard Marriott Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

28 Salt Lake Tribune, January 17, 1926.

29 Utah Daily Chronicle, November 21, 1926. In November 1926, Harline was inducted into the Beta Theta Pi fraternity in the President’s Suite of the Hotel Utah.

30 Ogden Standard-Examiner, June 20, 1940; Deseret News, February 1, 2002. The interview in the Ogden Standard-Examiner implies that Leigh may have met his wife at a dance where his band was playing.

31 Lyman, interview; 1920 U.S. Census, Venice, Los Angeles, California, family 48, page 2b, Catherine C. Palmer, digital image, accessed December 21, 2016, ancestry. com. According to University of California, Los Angeles, records, Catherine Collette Palmer was a junior there in 1928. The El Rodeo yearbook states that she was a member of the Pi Beta Phi sorority. See digitallibrary.usc.edu.

32 Modesto (CA) News-Herald, May 29, 1928; Oakland (CA) Tribune, August 24, 1928, August 13, 14, 1929.

33 Kevin Starr, Golden Dreams: California in an Age of Abundance, 1950–1963 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 105; Jim Cox, American Radio Networks: A History (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2009), 104–105; Alexander Russo, Points on the Dial: Golden Age Radio beyond the Networks (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010), 202n3; John F. Schneider, “San Francisco Networks of the 1930s,” Old Radio, accessed December 23, 2016, www.oldradio.com/archives/prog/westcoast. networks.

34 Salt Lake Telegram, December 28, 1928.

35 Ibid.; LeRoy Ashby, With Amusement for All: A History of American Popular Culture since 1830 (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2006), 214.

36 Capital Times (Madison, WI), July 13, 1930.

37 Ross Care, “The Film Music of Leigh Harline,” Film Music Notebook 3, no. 2 (1977): 32–48.

38 Robert S. McElvaine, The Encyclopedia of the Great Depression (New York: MacMillan, 2004), 239.

39 Ibid.; Ashby, Amusement for All, 258; Steven Watts, The Magic Kingdom: Walt Disney and the American Way of Life (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1997), 63–64.

40 Ross Care, “Symphonies for the Sillies: The Composers for Disney’s Shorts,” Funny World, issue 18, 39–40.

41 Ibid., 43–44.

42 “The Disney Legends Awards” program, quoting Wilfred Jackson, December 5, 2001, courtesy Jo-An Harline Lyman. Copy in authors’ possession. See also Ross Care, “Make Walt’s Music: Music for Disney Animation, 1928–1967,” in The Cartoon Music Book, eds. Daniel Goldmark and Yuval Taylor (Chicago: A Cappella Books, 2002), 24, 26–28.

43 J. B. Kaufman, Pinocchio: The Making of the Disney Epic (San Francisco: Walt Disney Family Foundation, 2015),

44 1930 U.S. Census, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, family 292, roll 136, page 14b, Leigh Harkinet (Leigh Harline), digital image, accessed December 22, 2016, ancestry.com. The 1940 census states that Harline’s income was more than $5,000 per year. 1940 U.S. Census, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, roll T627, page 4A, Leigh A. Harline, digital image, accessed December 22, 2016, ancestry.com.

45 Mary Neiswender, Doc Anderson (Poulsbo, WA: Six Stars, 2002), 214.

46 Margaret Adamic, e-mail of “Leigh Harline Biography” to Sandra Brimhall, April 24, 2015, courtesy Walt Disney Company, 500 Buena Vista Street, Burbank, California. 47 Covina (CA) Argus, July 9, 1953. 48 Karen Harline Adams, telephone interview with the authors, August 6, 2013. 49 Ibid.; Lyman, interview. 50 Kaufman, Pinocchio, 121. 51 New York Times, February 8, 1940. 52 McElvaine, Great Depression, 892.

53 Kaufman, Pinocchio, 122. 54 Middlesboro (KY) Daily News, April 19, 1940; Kaufman, Pinocchio, 122. Kaufman notes however, that on some cues, Harline had a collaborator, Paul J. Smith, who was a “talented musician in his own right.” 55 New York Times, February 8, 1940. 56 Kaufman, Pinocchio, 279. 57 Ibid.

58 Ibid.

59 Care, “The Film Music of Leigh Harline”; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, October 26, 1998. Ned Washington was a prolific American lyricist and songwriter. He was nominated for eleven Academy Awards from 1940 to 1962. In 1952 he won another Academy Award for the best original music for High Noon. Clifton Avon Edwards, who was known as “Ukulele Ike,” was an American singer and voice actor. He was extremely popular during the 1920s and 1930s and, in 1929, his rendition of “Singin’ in the Rain” was number one on U.S. pop music charts for three weeks.

60 Maryville (MO) Daily Forum, December 26, 1975.

61 Kaufman, Pinocchio, 280.

62 Kaufman, Pinocchio, 285. According to Kaufman, by the mid-1940s “the Disney universe had expanded so dramatically that most viewers had learned to expect a tremendously varied range of subjects, styles and ideas.”

63 Lansing (MI) State Journal, January 12, 1980.

64 Richard A. Jewell and Vernon Harbin, The RKO Story (New York: Arlington House, 1992), 145.

65 Kaufman, Pinocchio, 285–86; William O’Connor, Daily Beast, February 7, 2015. O’Connor was quoting Dave Bosser, the producer and creative director of Walt Disney Animation Studios.

66 Provo Daily Herald, July 5, 1971.

67 Dixon (IL) Evening Telegraph, October 19, 1973.

68 Tom Sito, “The Disney Strike of 1941,” Animation World Network, July 19, 2005, accessed December 22, 2016, awn.com/animationworld/disney-strike-1941- how-it-changed-animation-comics; see also, Michael Denning, The Cultural Front: The Laboring of American Culture in the Twentieth Century (New York: Verso, 1997), chapter 11.

69 “Disney Legends Awards” program.

70 Salt Lake Tribune, July 7, 1942, August 20, 1944.

71 Salt Lake Telegram, April 22, July 24, 1946.

72 Big Spring (TX) Daily Herald, April 22, 1943.

73 Salt Lake Telegram, December 4, 1941; Hamilton (OH) Journal News, April 22, 1971.

74 Neiswender, Doc Anderson, 218.

75 Ibid.

76 Kaufman, Pinocchio, 121; Lyman, interview.

77 San Bernardino (CA) County Sun, September 5, 1935.

78 Matthew Kennedy, Joan Blondell: A Life between Takes (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2007), 18.

79 Neiswender, Doc Anderson, 218.

80 Clark County, Nevada, Decree of Divorce, February 6, 1942, No. 13321; Clark County, Nevada, Affidavit of Application for Marriage License, No. 62326; Clark County, Nevada, Marriage License, February 28, 1942, No. 62326, 134707, C1546874. Although the divorce decree did not expressly state that Catherine Palmer Harline was a resident of Nevada, she must have been to obtain a divorce there. During the 1940s, Nevada required that a person must live in the state a minimum of six weeks to obtain resident status. Although Clark County divorce records were searched, we could not determine the name of Catherine Darby’s first husband. 1910 U.S. Census, Owatonna, Steele, Minnesota, family 64, page 4a, George F. Darby, digital image, accessed December 21, 2016, ancestry.com; Franklyn Curtiss-Wedge, History of Rice and Steele Counties, Minnesota, Vol. 2 (Chicago: H. C. Cooper, Jr., 1910), 1538–39. Catherine Anne Barnard Darby (she went by Anne) was born in Minnesota on April 13, 1908, to George Franklin Darby and Eleanor Frances. George Darby—who was the son of Benjamin E. Darby, the proprietor and editor of the Owatonna, Minnesota, People’s Press—assisted his father with managing and editing the newspaper. According to Wedge, Catherine was named after her grandmother Kate Annie Barnard.

81 Neiswender, Doc Anderson, 219. Leigh Harline’s niece, Jo-An Harline Lyman, who met Anne at family reunions in Utah, said that Anne was well liked by family members.

82 Adams, telephone interview; Neiswender, Doc Anderson, 220; Deseret News, February 1, 2002.

83 Deseret News, February 1, 2002; Lyman, interview.

84 Lyman, interview.

85 Care, “The Film Music of Leigh Harline.”

86 John Dunning, On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old- Time Radio (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 257.

87 Lincoln (NB) Star, June 30, 1946.

88 Salt Lake Telegram, November 2, 1946.

89 Lyman, interview.

90 Salt Lake Telegram, November 2, 1946.

91 Portuguese Bend homes, including the Harline residence, made headlines in March 1957 when a “creeping catastrophe” caused their beach front property and more than one hundred other homes along the beach to slowly sink into the sea. According to the Santa Cruz (CA) Sentinel: “In the middle of the night . . . at the home of movie composer Leigh Harline, there was a nightmarish rending crash. Harline and his wife awoke to find doors, windows and drawers splintered and jammed shut. Floors, walls and roofs were torn and twisted.” Heartbroken, Leigh and Anne were forced to abandon their home and move to another location. Santa Cruz Sentinel, March 16, 1957. According to a letter from Crawford Gates to Leigh Harline, dated March 7, 1964, Leigh owned a home in the Hollywood Hills area, located at 7555 Lolina Lane. Crawford Gates Papers, MSS 7762, Music and Dance Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah.

92 Independent (Long Beach, CA), March 17, 1947. Leigh served on the Municipal Arts Commission and he was a member of the Mayor’s Music Advisory Board for three years. He also was a member of the Musician’s Union, Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences, Screen Composer’s Association, Composer’s Association, Composers and Lyricists Guild of America, the Bohemian Club, and Beta Theta Pi. FamilySearch database, accessed December 20, 2016, familysearch. org, s.v., Leigh Adrian Harline, KWVP-N9F. Anne was also very supportive of the arts and she belonged to the Community Arts Association of Palos Verdes. Independent Press-Telegram (Long Beach, CA), July 16, 1950.

93 Lyman, interview; Crawford Gates to Georgia Gates, February 18, 1964, Crawford Gates Papers. In this letter, Gates wrote that Harline had returned the money the LDS church had given him to compose the score for Man’s Search for Happiness.

94 Lyman, interview; Memorandum from Crawford Gates to David and Jean, February 13, 1964, Crawford Gates Papers. Harline also composed the score for the 1968 LDS film In This Holy Place. See the finding aid for the Leigh Harline papers.

95 Craword Gates to W. C. Whitaker, March 7, 1964, Crawford Gates Papers.

96 Crawford Gates to Leigh Harline, March 7, 1964, Crawford Gates Papers.

97 Salt Lake Tribune, February 23, 1964; Deseret News, December 12, 1969 (qtn.).

98 Salt Lake Tribune, April 15, 1959. Valentine went on to name several other composers such as Harold Orlob and Mary Hale Woolsey, who wrote Springtime in the Rockies.

99 News and Telegram (Sulphur Springs, TX), March 9, 1963.

100 Ross Care, “The Film Music of Harline.” Karen and Gretchen each owned one of their father’s two Oscars.

101 Ibid.

102 Chilliwack (BC) Progress, April 14, 1965.

103 Lyman, interview.

104 Neiswender, Doc Anderson. p. 214.

105 Ross Care, “The Film Music of Harline”; “AFI’s 100 Years . . . 100 Songs,” American Film Institute, accessed December 21, 2016, afi.com/100Years/songs.aspx.

106 Deseret News, February 1, 2002.

107 Jeremy Stahl, “Nordic Quack: Sweden’s Bizarre Tradition of Watching Donald Duck Cartoons on Christmas Eve,” Slate, December 22, 2009; “How to Celebrate Christmas in Sweden,” December 11, 2012, Life at SLU, accessed December 21, 2016, blogg.slu.se/life-atslu; National Public Radio, “How Donald Duck Helps Swedes Celebrate Christmas,” All Things Considered, December 24, 2014, npr.org/2014/12/24/372940340/ how-donald-duck-helps-swedes-celebrate-christmas.

108 William Darby and Jack Du Bois, American Film Music: Major Composers, Techniques, Trends, 1915–1990 (Jefferson: McFarland, 1999), 370.

109 “The Sounds of Fighting Men, Howlin’ Wolf and Comedy Icon among 25 Named to the National Recording Registry,” News from the Library of Congress, June 23, 2010, accessed December 23, 2016, loc.gov/today/ pr/2010/10-116.html. The University of Cincinnati has the largest collection of Leigh Harline’s music, with thirty-seven boxes of his musical scores and compositions. We contacted the university, hoping to locate more primary sources regarding Harline. Unfortunately, the collection does not include biographical material, correspondence, or journals. The website for the collection is ead.ohiolink.edu/xtf-ead/view?docId=ead/OhCiUAR0316.xml;query=;brand=default.

CONTRIBUTORS

TONYA REITER is an independent historian living in Salt Lake City.

MICHELLE HILL has a master’s degree in Art History from Brigham Young University. From 2010 to 2011, she was the Museum Curator at Camp Floyd/Stagecoach Inn State Park, when she became interested in Victorian-era fashion. She recently worked at the Steves Homestead Museum, a Victorian mansion in San Antonio, Texas, and she teaches Humanities at San Antonio College.

TED MOORE is an assistant professor of history at Salt Lake Community College. He received his Ph.D. from Michigan State University, specializing in urban history. He has published several articles, including two in the UHQ: “Fast Revolutions: Bicycles, Paved Paths, and the Creation of a Middle-Class City in Salt Lake, 1890–1903” and “Speed Merchants: The History of Professional Cycling in Salt Lake City, 1898–1914.” When not teaching, he enjoys spending time with his wife, Julie, and children, Theo and Genevieve, and riding his bike.

SANDRA DAWN BRIMHALL, who resides in West Jordan, Utah, is a writer and independent historian. She received a BS in Mass Communications from the University of Utah in 1975. In 2014, Sandra and her daughter, Dawn Retta Brimhall, were joint recipients of the BYU Charles Redd Center for Western Studies Award. Sandra was also the joint recipient with her son, Clinton Robert Brimhall, of the 2015 Clarence Dixon Taylor (third place) Historical Research Award, also from the Redd Center.

DAWN RETTA BRIMHALL—who graduated from Brigham Young University in 2011 with a BA in History Teaching and a minor in Geography—resides in Houston, Texas. She teaches United States History at Davis Senior High School in Houston.

FLOYD A. O’NEIL is a Fellow of the Utah State Historical Society and the former director of the American West Center at the University of Utah. Shauna O’Neil is an attorney living in Salt Lake City.

WILLIAM P. MACKINNON is a Fellow and Honorary Life Member of the Utah State Historical Society. Since 1963 his articles, essays, and book reviews have appeared in UHQ, and in 2016 Arthur H. Clark published the second volume of his documentary history of the Utah War (At Sword’s Point). He has been presiding officer of the Mormon History Association, Santa Barbara Corral of the Westerners, and the Yale Library Associates. Additionally, MacKinnon has been a vice president of General Motors Corporation, chairman of Children’s Hospital of Michigan, and president of MacKinnon Associates, a management consulting firm. He resides in Montecito, California.