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Elliott became an actor and writer with the Doris Fitton's Independent Theatre. He was drafted into the Australian Army in 1942, but instead of being posted overseas, he worked 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 audiences' understanding of the typical Australian '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.

Elliott moved to the United States in 1948 where he ranked in the pantheon of leading playwrights during the Golden Age of live television dramas, writing more than 30 original plays and numerous adaptations for such shows as Kraft Television Theatre, Studio One and Playhouse 90.

In 1955, he obtained his United States citizenship and did not return to Australia until 1974.

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

As a gay man 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, Elliott had affairs but never had any stable relationships. Matt & Andrej Koymasky - Famous GLTB - Sumner Locke Elliott

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
• Wicked Is the Vine (first Australian play to be televised in US)
• Rusty Bugles 1948
• Buy Me Blue Ribbons 1951
• John Murray Anderson's Almanac 1953