Roland Charles Meyers, better known by his stage name Whip Wilson, was a western film actor born on June 16, 1911, in Granite, Illinois, to a family of eight children. Before venturing into the film industry, he showcased his talent as a singer, although he never gained recognition as a "singing cowboy." His career was unexpectedly launched by Scott R. Dunlap, a Monogram Pictures studio executive, who was searching for a replacement for the late Buck Jones. Dunlap was impressed by Whip's resemblance to Jones and decided to capitalize on the popular cowboy hero image by handing him a bull whip and grooming him to resemble Lash LaRue and Buck Jones.
Whip's early experience in front of the camera came with a part in the Jimmy Wakely oater Silver Trails (1948). By the next year, he was starring in his own tailor-made vehicles, including Crashing Thru (1949),where he played a white-hatted, white steed-mounting hero accompanied by his sidekick, Andy Clyde. Clyde left the series after a dozen pictures, and was replaced by Fuzzy Knight and/or Jim Bannon. Whip's frequent co-stars included blonde bombshell Reno Browne, who was once married to cowboy actor Lash LaRue, and dark-haired beauty Phyllis Coates, who was better known for playing Lois Lane on film and TV's Adventures of Superman (1952).
After a three-year career as a movie cowboy, Whip rode off into the sunset after starring in the western programmer Wyoming Roundup (1952). He worked only one more time in the industry, providing whip-wielding instructions to Burt Lancaster in a couple of scenes and appearing unbilled in the western The Kentuckian (1955). Whip managed a Los Angeles apartment complex in later years and passed away on October 22, 1964, at the relatively young age of 53, due to a heart attack. He was survived by his third wife, Monica, and was buried in his native state of Illinois.
