Sumner Locke Elliott

Sumner Locke Elliott (17 October 1917 - 24 June 1991) was an Australian (later American) novelist, born in Sydney to the writer Sumner Locke and the journalist Henry Logan Elliott. His mother died very shortly after his birth. Elliott was raised by his aunts, who had a fierce custody battle over him (dramatised in Elliott's novel Careful, He Might Hear You).

Elliott became an actor and writer with the Independent Theatre. He was drafted into the Australian Army in 1942, but was not posted overseas, working as a clerk in Australia. He used these experiences as the inspiration for his controversial play, Rusty Bugles. The play toured extensively throughout Australia and achieved the notoriety of being closed down by the Chief Secretary's Office for obscenity.

However Rusty Bugles place in the history of Australian theatre rests on more than notoriety. Mac is a memorable character in the play and in the first production Frank O'Donnell transformed this typical 'bludger' or 'scrounger'. To the men in his unit he appeared a winner even when he was losing but with the discovery of his wife's infidelity his fragility becomes apparent.

Elliot moved to the United States in 1948 where he worked as a television scriptwriter, and obtained US citizenship in 1955. Elliott did not return to Australia until 1974.[1]

Perhaps Elliott's best known book, Careful, He Might Hear You won the Miles Franklin Award in 1963, and was turned into a film in 1983.

As a homosexual during a time when this was socially problematic, Elliott was uncomfortable with his sexuality. He kept it secret until nearly the end of his life, before coming out in his book Fairyland. Because of these fears, it seems that while he had affairs, Elliott never had any stable relationships. [2]

The Cast of Rusty Bugles (1948)

Independent Theatre Company - Sydney

Act I The interior of a wet weather hut at Kallereena, an Advance Ordnance Depot in the Northern Territory, an autumn night in the year 1944.

Act II The same. Well into September. A Sunday morning.

Characters 1. DES NOLAN ("THE GIG APE") - John Kingsmill 2. VIC RICHARDS - Ivor Bromley-Smith 3. SERGEANT BROOKS - Sidney Chambers 4. ROD CARSEN - Ronald Frazer 5. ANDY EDWARDS ("THE LITTLE CORPORAL") - Robert Crome 6. OTFORD - Alistair Roberts 7. MAC - Frank O'Donnell 8. OLLIE - John Unicomb 9. CHRIS - Kevin Healy 10. DARKY McCLURE - Lloyd Berrell 11. KEGHEAD STEPHENS - Ralph Peterson 12. CORPORAL - doubled 13. KEN FALCON (“DEAN MAITLAND”) - Michael Barnes 14. FIRST PRIVATE - Jack Wilkinson 15. SECOND PRIVATE - James Lyons 16. BILL HENRY (YMCA SERGEANT) - Frank Curtain 17. PRIVATE - Peter Hartland 18. JACK TURNER (SIGS CORPORAL) - doubled 19. SIGS PRIVATE - doubled 20. SAMMY KUHN - Kenneth Colbert

Bibliography

Novels

• Careful, He Might Hear You 1963
• Some Doves and Pythons 1966
• Edens Lost 1969
• The Man Who Got Away 1972
• Going 1975
• Water Under the Bridge 1977
• Rusty Bugles 1980
• Signs of Life 1981
• About Tilly Beamis 1985
• Waiting for Childhood 1987
• Fairyland 1990

Short Stories

• Radio Days 1993

Drama

• Interval 1939
• The Cow Jumped Over the Moon 1939
• The Little Sheep Run Fast 1940
• Goodbye to the Music 1942
• Your Obedient Servant 1943
• The Invisible Circus 1946
• Rusty Bugles 1948
• Buy Me Blue Ribbons 1951
• John Murray Anderson's Almanac 1953