Sumner Locke Elliott

Elliott was born in Sydney in 1917 to the writer Helena Sumner Locke and the journalist Henry Logan Elliott. His mother died of eclampsia one day after his birth. Elliott was raised by his aunts, who had a fierce custody battle over him, fictionalized in Elliott’s autobiographical novel, Careful, He Might Hear You. Elliott was educated at Cranbrook School in Bellevue Hill, Sydney.

Elliott began acting and writing for radio during his teens, and showed signs of a promising career during his twenties before he was called for administrative military service in World War II. In 1948, Elliott relocated to the United States where he became a highly regarded television scriptwriter. As a fiercely intelligent and bold person, he made a name for himself, until the era of live television drama ended in the early 1960s.

Elliott remained in the United States for the remainder of his life, commencing a literary career in 1963 with his autobiographical novel “Careful He Might Hear You”, which won the Miles Franklin Award and was subsequently made into a film. He published ten novels in total, several of which dealt with issues from his own childhood and experiences in Australia before the War. Although he increasingly developed a following among Australian readers, Elliott remained uncomfortable with his country of birth, in no small part due to his homosexuality, which had marked him out for difference during his youth. He spent his final years in New York City, dying of cancer in 1991.

For the final six years of his life, Elliott lived with the American writer Whitfield Cook. The two men had been close for several years, although the exact nature of their relationship has been disputed. Cook was a widower from a heterosexual marriage, however his most notable works included the homoerotic Alfred Hitchcock film “Strangers on a Train”. Cook cared for Elliott until his death.