 The Big Valley was one of the most popular shows Carey Wilber wrote for.
According to web site by that name, "The Big Valley was a unique TV show among
Westerns of its day: a family headed by a strong matriarch with no father figure or
husband present. Victoria Barkley was a widow in her late 50s or early 60s (it never is
revealed exactly how old she is) with four sons and a daughter. The third son, Heath, was
fathered by Tom Barkley, her husband, out of wedlock with another woman, but Victoria has
accepted Heath as if he were her own son.
"The single most outstanding characteristic of the series was the
presence of Barbara Stanwyck, whose iron will and force of personality shone through in
each scene in which she appeared." |
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Carey Wilber also wrote for Bonanza,
another hugely popular show that first appeared on television sets on September
12,1959. According to the Bonanza
website, "The show originally was intended as a vehicle to sell color TV sets.
RCA, the parent company of NBC wanted a show with a lot of outdoor scenes to promote it's
new color television sets. Although the ratings of the show were marginal in the first two
years it stayed on the air and became a huge success when it was moved from it's original
time slot of 7:30pm on Saturday to Sunday night at 9:00pm." |
| According to TV GUIDE on Nov 7 1959, "Bonanza is a big,
expensive, slickly made Western of epic proportions, drawing its source material from the
era of the discovery of the Comstock lode-a "solid mountain of silver" in
Virginia Ciyt, Nev. The rich strike created silver barons in Nevada, and they in
turn created havoc. The story is told from the point of view of the Cartwrights-a
father and three sons whose allegiance is not to silver but to the land. The three
sons are forever at each other's throats, but when the chips are down the forget their
differences and fight shoulder to shoulder." |
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 One Maverick episode written by Carey Wilbur was Day of Reckoning, in
which Bret and a printer set out to stop a rancher who has killed the marshall from taking
over the town. |
Maverick was a western in which
a charming, debonair, educated gambler named Bret Maverick, played by James Garner,
rambled around the West getting into scrapes, winning and losing card games, winning the
hearts of women, and defeating stupid and ignorant bad guys. From time to time he was
joined by one of his brothers, Bart Maverick played by Jack Kelly, Beau Maverick by Roger
Moore, and Brent Maverick by Robert Colbert. |
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The Life of Carey Wilber,
Sr.
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