“Walt Disney” Premieres Monday and Tuesday, September 14-15, 2015 9:00-11:00 p.m. ET on PBS TCA Panelists Sarah Colt (Producer/Director) is an independent documentary filmmaker who has worked in public television for nearly two decades. Her previous credits include writing, producing and directing “A Nation Reborn” and “A New Light,” episodes from the special series “God in America,” a co-production of AMERICAN EXPERIENCE and FRONTLINE. Additional AMERICAN EXPERIENCE credits include “Henry Ford,” “The Polio Crusade” and “Geronimo,” part four of the AMERICAN EXPERIENCE special series on native history, “We Shall Remain.” Before starting her own company in 2008, she worked for David Grubin Productions, where she produced the highly acclaimed biography “RFK,” and earned an Emmy Award for Outstanding Science, Nature and Technology for co-producing THE SECRET LIFE OF THE BRAIN, a five-part series. In 2004, Colt was awarded an International Reporting Project Fellowship through Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and traveled to Namibia to report on the racial imbalance of land ownership in Southern Africa. Colt attended Harvard University, where she began her documentary career as a still photographer. Neal Gabler (Participant) is a distinguished author, cultural historian and television commentator who has been called “one of America’s most important public intellectuals.” His most recent book, Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination, a New York Times best-seller, was named biography of the year by USA Today and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the second for Gabler. His first book, An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood, won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for History and the Theatre Library Association Award. His second book, Winchell: Gossip, Power and the Culture of Celebrity, was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award and was named the nonfiction book of the year by Time. His third book, Life the Movie: How Entertainment Conquered Reality, is currently used in college courses across the country to examine the convergence of reality and entertainment. Gabler graduated with high distinction and highest honors from the University of Michigan and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. He has taught at the University of Michigan and at Penn State and served as host for the public television movie review program “Sneak Previews,” American Movie Classics, the History Channel’s “Reel to Real” and “Reel Thirteen” on New York’s WNET. Gabler is a contributing editor at Playboy and a regular contributor to The New York Times, The Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times and Reuters Opinion, and his essays and articles have appeared in Newsweek, Vanity Fair, The Nation and many others. In 2014, he won the National Arts and Entertainment Journalism Award from the Los Angeles Press Club. Gabler has been the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Shorenstein Fellowship at Harvard University, a Freedom Forum Fellowship and was a Woodrow Wilson Public Policy Scholar. He is currently a senior fellow at the Norman Lear Center for the Study of Society and Entertainment at the University of Southern California and is a visiting professor in the MFA program at SUNY Stony Brook. Don Hahn (Participant) is producer of the worldwide phenomenon The Lion King and the classic Beauty and the Beast, the first animated film nominated for a Best Picture Oscar. He is a founder and executive producer of the acclaimed Disneynature Films (Earth, Oceans, African Cats and Chimpanzee) and most recently executive producer of Maleficent, starring Angelina Jolie. Hahn began his career in film as assistant director to legendary producer-director Wolfgang Reitherman (The Jungle Book), and was associate producer for the landmark hit Who Framed Roger Rabbit. His other credits include The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Atlantis, Fantasia 2000 and The Emperor’s New Groove. As an author, Hahn’s books on animation, art and creativity include the best-seller Brain Storm, the acclaimed educational series Drawn To Life and the much-anticipated Before Ever After: The Lost Lectures of Disney’s Animation Studio due in the Fall of 2015. Hahn also serves on the advisory committee for the Walt Disney Family Museum and is on the board of trustees of PBS SoCal. Carmenita Higginbotham (Participant) is associate professor of art history and American studies at the University of Virginia. She specializes in American art and culture with an emphasis on urban art, critical race studies and American popular culture. In addition to her art historical research, Higginbotham offers courses on the history of Disney as well as on American stardom, film noir and Depression-era cinema. She has collaborated with artist/filmmaker Kevin Everson on the project American Motor Company (2010) and worked as voice talent for Everson’s film, According To… (2007). Exhibitions of the films include The Museum of Modern Art (NY), the Whitney Museum of American Art and the National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC). Professor Higginbotham’s recent book, The Urban Scene: Race, Reginald Marsh and American Art (Penn State University Press, 2015), examines African-American representation in the 1930s. Her upcoming projects include a study of racial imagery in the popular press of the late 19th and early 20tth centuries, and a consideration of urbanism and American mural painting before World War II. Mark Samels (Executive Producer) was named executive producer of AMERICAN EXPERIENCE, PBS’ flagship history series, in 2003. Under Samels’ leadership, the series has been honored with nearly every industry award, including the Peabody, Primetime Emmys, the duPont-Columbia Journalism Award, Writers Guild Awards, Oscar nominations, and Sundance Film Festival Audience and Grand Jury Awards. Prior to joining WGBH, Samels worked as an independent documentary filmmaker, an executive producer for several U.S. public television stations and as a producer for the first co-production between Japanese and American television. A native of Wisconsin, he is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Richard M. Sherman (Participant) is a composer and lyricist who, along with his late brother Robert B. Sherman, has written more songs for motion pictures than any team in cinematic history. Their achievements include two Academy Awards® for Mary Poppins (score) and “Chim Chim Cher-Ee” (song), nine Oscar® nominations, three Grammy Awards, 24 Gold and Platinum albums, a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, an honorary doctorate from their alma mater, Bard College, and in 2008, the National Medal of Arts was bestowed on them at the White House, the highest honor bestowed on American- born artists. Their work includes the most translated song on earth, “It’s A Small World (After All).” The legendary Sherman brothers first gained recognition in popular music with Top 10 hits “You’re Sixteen,” “Let’s Get Together” and “Tall Paul.” In 1960, Walt Disney himself signed the Sherman Brothers to an exclusive contract, making them the Disney Studio’s first (and only) staff songwriters. The Sherman Brothers wrote more than 200 songs featured in Disney films, TV shows and theme parks. Their 36 Disney feature film credits include The Jungle Book, The Parent Trap, Summer Magic, The Aristocats, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, The Happiest Millionaire, The Family Band, The Sword in the Stone and the Winnie the Pooh series. They wrote Disney’s long-running TV theme song, “The Wonderful World of Color” and their many contributions to Disney theme parks include “The Tiki Tiki Tiki Room,” “There’s a Great Big, Beautiful Tomorrow” (Carousel of Progress) and “One Little Spark” (EPCOT). Richard M. Sherman continues writing songs and composing music every day. His song “Make Way for Tomorrow Today” was featured in Iron Man 2 (2010). He recently served as music consultant on the Disney film Saving Mr. Banks, the story of how Walt Disney acquired the rights to produce Mary Poppins. .