Norman Hudis was a Bristish-born screenwriter best known for his work on the first six Carry On films, released throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Featuring an ensemble cast performing in low-budget comedy films, specials, television series and stage plays, the Carry On franchise became the most successful and longest-running of its kind in British cinema history.
Hudis’s first screenplay for the succession of films was 1958’s Carry On Sergeant, starring William Hartnell as a gruff but good-hearted sergeant training his last group of cadets before his retirement. The film was a success — ranking third in the British box-office charts for 1958.
Eventually Hudis left the U.K. for America, where he worked as a freelance television writer. He contributed to the series Green Acres, The Wild Wild West, Secret Agent, The Man from U.N.CL.E., Hawaii Five-O, The F.B.I., It Takes a Thief, McCloud, Butch Cassidy, Cannon, Marcus Welby, M.D., Baretta, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, CHiPs and Simon & Simon.
Norman Hudis was a Bristish-born screenwriter best known for his work on the first six Carry On films, released throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Featuring an ensemble cast performing in low-budget comedy films, specials, television series and stage plays, the Carry On franchise became the most successful and longest-running of its kind in British cinema history.
Hudis’s first screenplay for the succession of films was 1958’s Carry On Sergeant, starring William Hartnell as a gruff but good-hearted sergeant training his last group of cadets before his retirement. The film was a success — ranking third in the British box-office charts for 1958.
Eventually Hudis left the U.K. for America, where he worked as a freelance television writer. He contributed to the series Green Acres, The Wild Wild West, Secret Agent, The Man from U.N.CL.E., Hawaii Five-O, The F.B.I., It Takes a Thief, McCloud, Butch Cassidy, Cannon, Marcus Welby, M.D., Baretta, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, CHiPs and Simon & Simon.
Hudis also wrote the Man from U.N.C.L.E. films The Karate Killers, starring Robert Vaughn, David McCallum and Joan Crawford, and How to Steal the World, starring Vaughn and McCallum.
After leaving school at the age of 16, Hudis got his start as a trainee reporter. A year into the World War II he joined the Royal Air Force and wrote for Air Force News. He later worked in public relations at the J. Arthur Rank Organisation, and then moved into film as a unit publicity rep for Pinewood Studios.
He had ambitions to become a playwright, but ended up writing screenplays, churning out 20 B-movies after serving in a two-year scriptwriting apprenticeship. His first break came when the producer Peter Rogers commissioned him to write 1957's The Tommy Steele Story.
Hudis died February 8, 2016, in California. He was 93.
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