Carey Wilber (June 26, 1916 â May 2, 1998) was an American journalist and television writer born in Buffalo, New York. He began the TV portion of his career in the days of live television, and wrote for a variety of programs over the next three decades, including Captain Video and His Video Rangers, The Asphalt Jungle, Lost In Space, The Time Tunnel, Bonanza, and Maverick. Wilber wrote the "Ice Princess" storyline for the daytime serial General Hospital in 1981. He died in Seattle, Washington.
Wilber was a native of Buffalo, New York. His father, Willis Wilber, was a newspaperman. Wilber attended Holy Angels School and St. Joseph's Collegiate Institute. After leaving high school, he lived with his grandmother on her farm in Gowanda, New York, and delivered milk for Wilber Farms Dairy. His other jobs in his youth included selling brushes door-to-door and working at Republic Steel and at a gas station. He joined the United States Army Reserve and, while waiting for his orders, he worked at the Tonawanda News, where his father was managing editor. He had taken flight instruction at the State University of Buffalo in 1942, and his military duties made him a training officer for the Air Force in Mississippi. His jobs after returning to civilian life included driving a truck, flying a plane, prospecting for gold, and drilling for oil, in addition to working at newspapers.
Before Wilber shifted his focus to TV, he worked for 10 newspapers in places including Anchorage, Alaska, and Birmingham, Alabama, with his tenures ranging from six weeks to four years in each place. He was a writer for The Globe and Mail in Toronto, Canada, when he watched a TV program while on a week's leave in New York City. He decided to try his hand at writing for TV, bought a book on that topic, and began creating scripts when he returned to Toronto. His first submissions were rejected before another was accepted by the agency that produced Armstrong Circle Theatre.
Wilber wrote the original story for, and co-wrote the teleplay of, the ' episode "Space Seed". The general plot had originally been created by Wilber for the series Captain Video and His Video Rangers, which featured humans from Ancient Greece who were preserved in cryogenic suspension and resurrected. During the conception and writing of the episode, numerous changes were made, as producer Bob Justman felt that it would be too expensive to film. Despite this, and due to the support of NBC executives, Justman gave a series of notes to Wilber for him to redraft the proposal. Eventually, it was passed to Gene L. Coon to revise, and the final draft was also revised by series creator Gene Roddenberry. These revisions include the marooning of the criminals at the end of the episode, and the change of the primary villain from a Nordic character to a Sikh. Roddenberry attempted to claim the primary writing credit for "Space Seed", a request that was turned down by the Writers Guild of America.
Wilber was married and had five children.