Biographie
Born in London in 1922, Norman Hudis is now a dual citizen of Britain and the U.S. He began his working life at 16, as a junior reporter, and volunteered for the Royal Air Force in 1940. Rejected for flying duties on medical grounds, he served almost 6 years in WWII, the last two of which on the reporting staff of the Air Force News, stationed in Cairo and covering the entire Middle East area. He was, as a result, the youngest War Correspondent in that conflict.
After many post-war years as a Film Studio publicist in England, he was eventually offered a contract as an apprentice screenwriter, at Pinewood Studios. Two years there gave him invaluable experience, but nothing he wrote was filmed. He resigned, went freelance, created and wrote almost all the scripts for two seasons of the one-hour comedy series, "Our House" (ABC TV, Britain), and became one of the most prolific writers of "B" films. One of them, "The Tommy Steele Story" (US title, "Rock Around The World"), took fifty times its production cost on its first release and changed his status forever.
He went on to write, for producer Peter Rogers and director Gerald Thomas, the first six of the phenomenally successful "Carry On" series of bawdy British movie comedies: "Sergeant", "Nurse", "Constable", "Teacher", "Regardless" and "Cruising." The series went on for more than 20 other movies. As a result of the freak success of "Nurse" in America, he was invited to Hollywood where he has lived and worked ever since, writing for most of the TV series of the time. Awards came his way for the Biblical epic, "Esther" (Best Religious Special, and Best Writing, from "Religion in Media"), "Baretta" ("Dear Tony", from The Mystery Writers of America, Edgar Allen Poe Award, best TV episode), American Women In Radio and TV (for enhancing the image of women in the media), and a nomination for Best Episode, Drama, "Marcus Welby MD", episode "Hell is Upstairs", from the Writers' Guild of America (West.)
Hudis has commuted to Britain several times to work on various projects: one of these, "A Monkey's Tale" (aka "Le Chateau des Singes"), won a Special Award for Excellence at the Heartland Film Festival, as well as at the Toronto and Hollywood Film Festivals, in the animation-feature category. In Cologne, Germany, he was Story Editor for the animated TV series, "Waldo", and wrote several of the scripts. Always a lover of live theatre, he has occasionally written stage-plays, most notably the controversial "Dinner With Ribbentrop", premiered at the Rude Guerilla Theater in Santa Ana, California. He's married to Rita, former RN, and has two sons: Stephen, a stunt coordinator and 2nd unit director, and Kevin, a retired veteran Hollywood Teamster, now managing a hobby store.
