Hooper Dunbar

A statement from the Bahá'í World News Service announcing the retirement included the following biographical statement about Hooper Dunbar:

Mr. Dunbar, 72, has served in Haifa since 1973 when he was called to the Baha'i World Centre as a member of the International Teaching Centre. He was first elected to the Universal House of Justice in 1988 and since then has been elected to successive terms.

Originally from Los Angeles, as a young man he was an actor on stage, screen and television, making films with Columbia, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and Twentieth Century-Fox. In 1958 he began 15 years of residence in Latin America, where he worked as a translator and educator. Mr. Dunbar served as a member of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of Nicaragua before being named to the Auxiliary Board for Protection. In 1968 he was appointed to the Continental Board of Counselors in South America and served in that position five years until moving to the Holy Land.

He is an accomplished painter whose works have been shown in Europe and elsewhere. He is the author of a book-length study guide to the Kitab-i-Iqan (Book of Certitude), one of the major works of Baha'u'llah, and of "Forces of Our Time: The Dynamics of Light and Darkness," published last year. Mr. Dunbar and his wife, Maralynn George Dunbar, have one son. They will be establishing their new residence in California.

In a biographical video, Dunbar shared that he was born in Griffith Park, Los Angeles, California. He was named after his grandfather, becoming Hooper Cameron Dunbar, III. Dunbar graduated from Hollywood High School and as a young man was very interested in stage settings, becoming involved in local theater productions. After graduation from high school he moved to New York and landed a lead role in a play called "The Young Disciple," about the public reaction to the arrival of a messenger of God to New York. He states at that time he had not yet heard of the Bahá'í Faith. He first heard of the Bahá'í Faith from the sculptor and actor Samuel Berger, who would later pioneer to Mexico.

As a Bahá'í, Dunbar traveled extensively. For example, as an Auxiliary Board member he toured Bolivia in 1964, and as a Counselor he visited Botswana in 1984. and as a member of the Universal House of Justice he visited the Czech Republic in 2007.

Throughout his acting career, Hooper Dunbar starred in a number of plays, television series, and movies for such Hollywood studios as Columbia, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and Twentieth Century-Fox. He eventually gained membership to the Screen Actors Guild. In 1957, Dunbar starred as Alfred Kramer in two episodes of the The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show, a television series broadcast on CBS. Also in 1957, Dunbar starred alongside Pat Boone and Dick Sargent in the Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation production of Bernardine. He also starred in an episode titled Decision for a Hero in the anthology drama series Cavalcade of America.

Hooper Dunbar paints in his studios in northern California and Spain. In addition to being held in many private collections throughout the world, his paintings have been exhibited at the United Nations Offices of the New York City Business Integrity Commission (BIC) and the executive offices of SOHO CHINA in Beijing.

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