Hugh McCrae

Who was Hugh McCrae?

Hugh Raymond McCrae was an Australian writer.

McCrae was born in Melbourne, the son of the Australian author George Gordon McCrae. Originally he trained as an architect, but later took up writing and acting, settling eventually in Sydney and later in the New South Wales town of Camden. His works are notable for a sense of lightness and delicacy, and he had produced, in addition to a volume of memoirs, a considerable body of verse, and a light operetta, an edition of his grandmother's journal, and a volume of prose pieces.

McCrae starred as Australian poet Adam Lindsay Gordon in W. J. Lincoln's 1916 feature film The Life's Romance of Adam Lindsay Gordon, shot in and around Melbourne. He wrote a fantasy play The Ship of Heaven which was produced by the Independent Theatre in 1933, for which Alfred Hill composed and conducted the music.

McCrae was well known to a number of distinguished figures in Australian artistic and literary circles. He is remembered for his friendships with Norman Lindsay and Kenneth Slessor, but he was also friendly with such figures as Christopher Brennan and Shaw Neilson. He shared an apartment with Pat Sullivan the creator of Felix the Cat in New York. 'It comes properly as a postscript that in New York McCrae shared a flat with Pat Sullivan, the famed creator of "Felix the Cat." When a film about Felix was being planned, Sullivan suggested that McCrae should do the drawings while he supplied the ideas. McCrae refused and has regretted it ever since.'