Hugh Clifford Stuckey (1 July 1928 – 21 June 2018) was an Australian comedy and drama screenwriter, with credits writing for television, film, radio and commercials both locally and in the United Kingdom and the US. He was also a published author, playwright, radio broadcaster, actor, and Victorian baseballer.
Having started writing for In Melbourne Tonight in 1957, he was one of Australia's first television comedy writers. He wrote for Australian productions The Delo and Daly Show, Time for Terry, A Country Practice, Blue Heelers, Hey Dad..!, Neighbours, The New Adventures of Blinky Bill and The Restless Years, and wrote various shows for stars Noel Ferrier, Stuart Wagstaff, Bert Newton, Frankie Howerd and Tommy Leonetti. British shows he wrote for included The Two Ronnies, Dave Allen at Large and The Bill. American productions included I Dream of Jeannie and Bewitched.
Stuckey was a life member of the Australian Writers' Guild, having been a founding member. He presided as the group's vice president for many years. He lectured at the Film and Television School and RMIT, mentoring the next generation of writers.
Stuckey was honoured by the television industry with the 2005 Fred Parsons Award at the Australian Writers' Guild AWGIE Awards for his lifetime contribution to Australian comedy.
Early life
Born Hugh Clifford Stuckey on 1 July 1928 at the Ellesmere Hospital, Ormond, Australia, he was the son of Linda Stuckey and Australian baseballer Hubert Stuckey. He was born during the Great Depression, which had a large impact on the Stuckey family.
Early career
In 1942, at 14 years old, Stuckey secured his first radio spot as a comedian for a weekly variety show called Kiddies Kapers. In 1943, at the age of 15 and under pressure by his father, he finished his studies at Melbourne High School and started working at Australian Paper Manufacturers (APM), now named Paperlinx. Hubert had chosen APM for Hugh to work for, as they had survived the Great Depression and could offer Hugh a secure job for life.
Stuckey, however found little interest in his job at APM, focusing his attention on performing live on stage and radio after hours. During World War II, he performed in 350 performances for the Australian troops in a comedy routine. In 1946, he received his first writing credit for a five-minute sketch for ABC Radio. In 1947, he wrote several gags for Radio 3DB's show Happy Gang.
Still working full-time at APM, for 26 weeks he wrote for the Macquarie Radio Network's 3AW station for a weekly sitcom Monty's Caberet.
In 1954, much to his father's disappointment, Stuckey quit his job at APM and left Melbourne with his new wife Shirley and took up a writing role for The Cadbury Show that would run for over 300 episodes.
In 1955, Stuckey fathered his first child, Leigh-Anne.
His writing career developed as he began writing for well known actors at the time such as Jack Davey, George Wallace Snr and Willie Fennell.
In 1959, his second daughter, Claire, was born.
Television
In 1957, the year after television was introduced to Australia, Stuckey was hired as a comedy writer for Sydney Tonight. In 1958, he was appointed head writer for the highly successful In Melbourne Tonight, which was hosted by Graham Kennedy on Melbourne's GTV9 (now part of the Nine Network. After the Reg Grundy Organisation was founded in 1959, Stuckey would find regular work on the many programs the company would produce in the following decades.
In 1962, Stuckey moved on to write for The Delo & Daly Show, a comedy variety show hosted by Americans Ken Delo and Jonathan Daly. Stuckey wrote 46 one-hour episodes of the show, which appeared on HSV7 (now Channel 7. With the support of Daly, Stuckey was granted a leave of absence by HSV7 to pursue writing and to gain experience in Hollywood. While in Hollywood, Stuckey was hired by Desilu Productions who gave him the experience to learning directly from the writers of The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Danny Thomas Show and The Andy Griffith Show
After returning to Australia and fulfilling his contract with The Delo & Daly Show, Stuckey moved to HSV, now Seven Network, in 1963. He was hired to devise and produce a daytime series that ran five one-hour episodes per week. The series, Time for Terry, was hosted by English comedian Terry O'Neill.
In 1966, Stuckey was hired by Melbourne television station ATV0 (now ATV10, part of Network Ten, as a writer and producer of The Jimmy Hannan Show, hosted by 1965 Gold Logie winner Jimmy Hannan.