Dick Hills and Sid Green

Who was Dick Hills and Sid Green?

Richard Michael Hills, and Sidney Green, informally known as Sid Green and Dick Hills, were a British partnership of television comedy writers, at their highest profile during the 1960s.

They both attended Haberdashers' Aske's Hatcham Boys Grammar School in South-east London. They were both School Captains, Richard in 1943 and Sidney in 1945. Richard returned to the school as a teacher of English Latin and French. Whilst Hills was still teaching they co-wrote a number of radio scripts, and then became writers of the Dave King TV show. Dave King was the first real comedian to break into TV.

Hills and Green created with star Anthony Newley the six-part surreal comedy series The Strange World of Gurney Slade. The partnership also wrote for such performers as Roy Castle and Frankie Howerd, but their best-remembered collaboration was with the comedy double act Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise, on the ATV show Two of a Kind, and the comedians' first colour BBC series in 1968. Hills and Green also played supporting roles in various sketches in the series.

Hills and Green were involved in the writing of the three cinema films made by Morecambe and Wise in the 1960s: The Intelligence Men in which they also had cameo roles, That Riviera Touch, and The Magnificent Two. After nearly 10 years writing for Morecambe and Wise, Green and Hills informed them of their desire to try to break into the US TV market. While Eric Morecambe was recovering from a heart attack, Green and Hills were offered a writing role on the Don Knotts Show in Los Angeles. Not knowing when Eric Morecambe would be fit to perform again, they accepted the offer and moved their families to the US. Green and Hills also wrote and starred in their own show, Those Two Fellers, made in 1967.