Longtime associate of Orson Welles who joined Welles and John Houseman at the founding of the Mercury Theater company in 1937. Wilson worked as stage manager and actor in such Mercury productions as "Julius Caesar", "The Cradle Will Rock", "Native Son" and "Heartbreak House" while simultaneously working as an actor and production assistant on the radio program "Mercury Theater of the Air", including its legendary broadcast of "The War of the Worlds". Wilson appeared in "Citizen Kane" (1941) and "The Lady from Shanghai" (1948), for which he served as associate producer).

After Welles left for Europe in the early 50s, Wilson joined Universal as a producer working on the Ma and Pa Kettle films and in the mid-50s began directing features, mostly highly realistic Westerns and gangster films including "Al Capone" (1959), "Pay or Die" (1960) and "Invitation to a Gunfighter" (1964).