John Wilder (born John Keith McGovern; May 28, 1936) is an American television producer, writer, and former actor. He received two Primetime Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Drama Series for his work on The Streets of San Francisco, and created the series The Yellow Rose and Spenser: For Hire. He was also the producer of the miniseries Centennial.
As an actor, he appeared in films including Tumbleweed Trail (1946), When I Grow Up (1951), Singin' in the Rain (1952), The Pride of St. Louis (1952), Peter Pan (1953), Hold Back the Night (1956), and Five Guns to Tombstone (1960).
Wilder was born in Tacoma, Washington, on May 28, 1936.[1][2] He began performing as a tap dancer by the time he was four years old. His family moved to Los Angeles in 1943, and, under his birth name, Johnny McGovern, he began a career as a child actor.[2] For four years, he starred on the Red Ryder radio series as Little Beaver,[3] and performed over 2500 broadcasts during the 1940s and early 1950s.[2]
Wilder's first stage role was a Geller Theatre Workshop production in Los Angeles Watch on the Rhine (1943).[2] In films, he later played Freckles in the western Tumbleweed Trail (1946), starred alongside Ronald Reagan in Don Siegel's Night Unto Night (1949), and appeared as Duckface in the drama When I Grow Up (1951). He appeared in minor roles in Singin' in the Rain and The Pride of St. Louis (1952),[4] and voiced the Raccoon Twins in Walt Disney Productions' Peter Pan (1953).[5] In the mid-1950s, Wilder planned to abandon acting to pursue a baseball scholarship at the University of Southern California, but producer Ed Chevie persuaded him to appear in the film Rock, Pretty Baby (1956), which lead to roles in other films such as Hold Back the Night (1956), The Unguarded Moment (1956), Until They Sail (1957), and Imitation General (1958).[2] By then, he had begun using the name "John Wilder", which he legally adopted in 1958.[6]
In the early 1960s, Wilder decided to abandon acting, believing it to be unfulfilling and feeling he had no future in the profession. He began attending Santa Monica City College and later transferred to the University of California, Los Angeles. Chuck Connors, a friend of Wilder's who co-starred with him in Hold Back the Night, enlisted Wilder to write a script for his show The Rifleman. Wilder later wrote for Connors' series Branded, and afterwards wrote for the soap opera Peyton Place for several seasons.[2] He wrote for The Streets of San Francisco in the 1970s, which earned him two nominations for the Outstanding Drama Series Primetime Emmy.[7] Wilder served as the creator of The Yellow Rose and Spenser: For Hire, and was also the producer of the miniseries Centennial.
Wilder and his ex-wife, Carolyn Cunningham, have three children. He has worked as a professor at Westmont College since 2019.[2]