The W. Ray Wilson Papers contains scripts, treatments, pitches, and correspondence relating to the career of radio and television writer W. Ray Wilson. The bulk of this collection consists of radio scripts, most notably the Roy Rogers Show.

W. Ray Wilson Jr. was born in Illinois to Reverend Willis Ray Wilson and Alma Haas Wilson on February 12, 1907. He got his start as a writer and producer with the radio station WLW Cincinnati and CBS in Chicago in the 1930s, before moving to Los Angeles in the 1940s. He married dancer Marion Jones (b. 1913), stage name Marion Dixon, on April 15, 1939 in Cincinnati. They had three sons, David, Paul, and Robert Wilson. The most notable work of his career was his writing on the Roy Rogers Show, both for radio and television. Between 1948 and 1953, he wrote upwards of 150 episodes of Roy Rogers. During World War II, Wilson wrote for government-sponsored programs, such as Gene Autry’s Melody Ranch, The First Line, and The Unknown Soldier. He eventually moved back to the Midwest and continued to write through the 1950s and 1960s, working on industrial films for companies like the Jam Handy Organization and Chevrolet. Wilson died on January 16, 1963 in Detroit.

6 boxes, 7.5 feet

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Available by appointment only. Please contact the Writers Guild Foundation Archive, www.wgfoundation.org