Alan Hopgood

Alan John Hopgood (29 September 1934 – 19 March 2022) was a prolific Australian actor, producer, playwright, dramatist, screenwriter, librettist, publisher and lecturer whose career spanned more than seven decades. Born in Launceston, Tasmania, he made his stage debut at age twelve in The Winslow Boy and later attended Wesley College in Melbourne as a boarder before earning a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) and a Diploma of Education from the University of Melbourne. While teaching, his first play Marcus was produced at the university, prompting him to leave the classroom and pursue writing full‑time. Hopgood’s breakthrough came with the 1963 play And the Big Men Fly, a comedy about Australian rules football that was staged by the Union Theatre Repertory Company and later adapted for television, establishing him as a leading voice in Australian theatre. He continued to push boundaries with works such as The Golden Legion of Cleaning Women (1964) and Private Yuk Objects (1966), the latter claimed to be the world’s first play about the Vietnam War. As a screenwriter, he penned the iconic 1973 film Alvin Purple, which became the most commercially successful Australian movie of the early 1970s, and contributed scripts to numerous television series. His acting résumé includes a decade with the Melbourne Theatre Company, a six‑year stint as the town doctor in the soap Bellbird, and memorable roles in Prisoner and Neighbours, where he portrayed Jack Lassiter. Hopgood also appeared in films such as My Brilliant Career (1979), The Blue Lagoon (1980), Roadgames (1981), Evil Angels (1988) and The Man from Snowy River II (1988), sharing the screen with stars like Meryl Streep and Sam Neill. Recognised for his contributions, he received AWGIE awards for The Cheerful Cuckold and The Bush Bunch, and was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in 2005 for services to the performing arts and men’s health awareness. In his personal life he lived in Melbourne with his wife Gay, raising two children, Fincina and Sam, and became a devoted grandfather to four grandchildren. After battling prostate cancer, he authored the memoir Surviving Prostate Cancer: One Man’s Journey and gave humorous lectures on men’s health, before passing away on 19 March 2022 in a Melbourne hospital.