George Wilbern

George Wilbern's theatrical experience began while studying dramatics in 1934 at Goodman Theatre, in Chicago, Illinois. In 1940 he attended Bliss-Hayden dramatic school in Beverly Hills, California where he played leads in the theatre and began making appearances in film. Wilbern appeared in over 250 motion pictures from 1936 to 1942, working as an extra, stand-in, and stunt man, along with doing doubling and bit parts. He was then assigned to the Signal Corps during World War II where he was in charge of all 16mm combat footage shot by SC cameramen in POA from April 1942 through July of 1945. He was the film editor of more than 150 Army training films, which prepped him for his later role as supervising film editor (and occasional director) of educational films with Coronet Films in Chicago, Illinois. Returning to Hollywood in 1954, Wilbern worked in 23 movies and he was the stand in and/or double for Carl Benton Reid, Jimmy Stewart, Cornel Wilde, Marlon Brando, Reginald Gardiner, Cesar Romero, and Kirk Douglas. He soon joined the Film Editor's Union (Local 776) and began to work at Walt Disney Studios as assistant film editor on the Disneyland TV shows as well as several features. He worked closely with Ben Sharpsteen and Winston Hibler for two years on "Disney's True Life Adventures" before returning to the Chicago area as a director, music and film editor of a YMCA documentary entitled "Great Enterprises." Wilbern made his way back to the west coast again and worked at Revue (MCA's television production subsidiary) where he worked with Mickey McAdam and Producer William Frye for two seasons on "General Electric Theatre," hosted by Ronald Reagan. He was also assigned as an assistant film editor on the Alfred Hitchcock television series for two seasons. In 1961, Wilbern abandoned film work and devoted the next five years to research and writing a biographical novel called The Human Tiger: The Story of Jacob Oppenheimer (which was published years later). He owned and successfully operated a cocktail lounge in San Francisco for nine years and continued to work in a number of films before selling his bar and moving back to Los Angeles. From 1977 to 1980, he appeared in more than 150 motion pictures or TV shows, having been converted to bit parts on a number of those appearances.