Norman Hudis (born 27 July 1923 in Stepney, England) is a writer for film, theatre and TV and is most closely associated with the first six of the Carry On film series, for which he wrote the screenplays.
He started his writing career on a local newspaper, the Hampstead & Highgate Express. When World War II broke out he joined the RAF and served in the Middle East writing for Air Force News. Like a lot of other post-war writers his first foray into entertainment was writing for camp concerts.
After the war Hudis decided to become a playwright, unfortunately only one of his plays Here Is The News met with critical success. This small success was enough to get him noticed by Pinewood Studios, who offered him a job as trainee screenwriter. During the two years he spent there he failed to get any of his screenplays into production.
Hudis left Pinewood and became a freelance writer and was soon to become a prolific screenwriter of B movies during the 1950s. He was the writer for the biopic The Tommy Steele Story.
Hudis met the film producer Peter Rogers in 1957 who offered him the job of writing another screenplay for Tommy Steele (The Duke Wore Jeans), which was to be directed by Gerald Thomas. (Peter Rogers' film producer wife Betty Box, who produced the Doctor film series, mostly worked with Geralds brother, the director Ralph Thomas).
The producer and director team of Peter and Gerald chose Hudis to rewrite the screenplay to R. F. Delderfield's The Bull Boys. He obliged and the screenplay for what was to become the first of the enormously successful Carry On... film series, Carry On Sergeant, was born. Following the success of this Carry On début, Hudis went on to write a further five Carry On's (Carry On Nurse; Carry On Teacher; Carry On Constable; Carry On Regardless and Carry On Cruising) the highpoint being his second one, Carry On Nurse, which was the UK's top grossing film of 1959.
In 1966 Hudis decided to move permanently to the U.S. as he'd received lots of offers of work following the commercial success of Carry On Nurse over there. His US TV writing credits include, The Wild Wild West, The F.B.I., The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (The Karate Killers), Hawaii Five-O, Cannon and Baretta.
Norman Hudis continues to write for film, TV and theatre. He is the co-writer of the long-running play Seven Deadly Sins Four Deadly Sinners,[1] which has played around the world since 2003 and he has also written the one-man play Jeffrey Archer's Prison Diaries by FF 8282, the authorised adaptation of Jeffrey Archer's intensely personal diaries which were written during his incarceration, both of which are produced by Marc Sinden Productions.[2]
His son, Stephen R. Hudis is a Hollywood director.
In 2008, Hudis wrote his autobiography No Laughing Matter: How I Carried On, published by Apex Publishing Ltd.[3]
Selected filmography
- Breakaway (1955)
- Passport to Treason (1956)
- Bond of Fear (1956)
- High Terrace (1956)
- West of Suez (1957)
- A Crooked Sky (1957)
- Stranger in Town (1957)
- The Duke Wore Jeans (1958)
- Twice Round the Daffodils (1962)
- Nurse on Wheels (1963)
External links
| Preceded by First |
Carry On films scriptwriter 1958 - 1962 |
Succeeded by Talbot Rothwell |
- ^ "Seven Deadly Sins Four Deadly Sinners". http://www.sindenproductions.com/7deadlysins4deadlysinners.html. Retrieved 2009-02-14.
- ^ "Jeffrey Archer's Prison Diaries by FF8282". http://www.sindenproductions.com/jeffrey_archers_prison_diaries.html. Retrieved 2009-02-14.
- ^ http://www.apexpublishing.co.uk/PubDetails.asp?Num=150
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