AustLit

Actor, writer and director (stage, radio and film).

Hartney J. Arthur's association with Australian film began in 1927 when he was cast as a convict boy in Norman Dawn's For the Term of His Natural Life (1927). He later went on work in Sydney radio and theater as a writer, director and actor, and toured New Zealand in the title role of Charley's Aunt.

In 1942 Arthur was cast in the role of Clarence Worthington in the film A Yank in Australia. The following year he adapted Dymphna Cusack's play Red Sky at Morning as a screenplay and went on to direct it the production. Starring Peter Finch and John Alden, the film was completed after considerable difficulties but failed to gain approval from the New South Wales censors under its quality clause. The film was subsequently seen only a few times in country cinemas in its original format. Arthur later managed a chain of independent theatres in Sydney before moving to the USA where he worked for the Australian Information Bureau and as a New York-based theatrical and film agent.