He starred in a series of very low-budget westerns in the 1920s and 1930s, billed as Buffalo Bill Jr. Born in St. Francisville, Missouri (studio biographies claimed Cheyenne, Wyoming),[1] the six-foot one-inch, brown-haired, blue-eyed Wilsey rode in Wild West shows and rodeos before he became an actor.

Universal Pictures tried to build Jay Wilsey as an action star under his real name (a 1929 trade review lists him as "formerly Buffalo Bill, Jr."),[2] but his two starring roles in the serials A Final Reckoning (1928) and The Pirate of Panama (1929) did not lead to more assignments, as the studio was converting to the production of sound films.

Wilsey's career as an actor diminished as sound films increased in popularity, although he continued to find work with independent producers.

Victor Adamson, whose westerns were so threadbare that he shot them in ramshackle California ghost towns on budgets of $1,000 or less, hired Wilsey for a series of features under the auspices of Adamson's ambitiously named Superior Talking Pictures.

Thereafter Wilsey found work in western features and serials as a supporting player, often uncredited, and his riding skills gave him credentials as a stunt performer.