32 Facts About Jon Cleary

Jon Stephen Cleary was an Australian writer and novelist.

Jon Cleary wrote numerous books, including The Sundowners, a portrait of a rural family in the 1920s as they move from one job to the next, and The High Commissioner, the first of a long series of popular detective stories featuring Sydney Police Inspector Scobie Malone.

Jon Cleary was born in Erskineville, Sydney and educated at Marist Brothers College, Randwick.

Jon Cleary left school in 1932, aged 14, to help his family financially.

Jon Cleary spent the following eight years doing a variety of jobs, notably as a commercial artist for Austral Toon under Eric Porter.

Jon Cleary wrote his first story in 1938 at the request of Joe Morley, a journalist friend of Cleary's father.

Jon Cleary enlisted in the Australian army on 27 May 1940 and served in the Middle East before being transferred to the Military History Unit.

Jon Cleary served for a time in New Guinea, where his clerk was Lee Robinson, and was discharged on 10 October 1945 with the rank of lieutenant.

Jon Cleary began writing regularly in the army, selling his first story in 1940.

Jon Cleary began to write for The Australian Journal, whose editor sent four of Cleary's short stories to American agent Paul Reynolds, who began selling them to American magazines such as Cosmopolitan and The Saturday Evening Post.

Jon Cleary started writing this in the army and finished it on board a ship en route to London where he had hoped to find work as a screenwriter.

Jon Cleary's second novel, The Long Shadow was a thriller, a genre he tackled at the suggestion of his editor Graham Greene.

Jon Cleary lived in Italy for a year then returned home to Australia in 1953 after seven years away.

Jon Cleary visited the Kimberley region in 1954, and the result was Justin Bayard.

Jon Cleary's novels became increasingly set in countries other than Australia, with Cleary travelling extensively for the purposes of research.

Jon Cleary had lived in Italy and become familiar with the motor races there.

Jon Cleary wrote The Green Helmet in Spain in twenty days, and it became a best seller on its publication in 1957.

Jon Cleary had time for script work, contributing to the screenplay for Damon and Pythias and writing an un-used draft for The Diamond Smugglers.

Jon Cleary followed it with The Long Pursuit, set during World War II, originally written as a film script.

Jon Cleary was working on a "social comedy" called The Ballad of Fingal McBride.

Jon Cleary then wrote Season of Doubt, set in Beirut, and Remember Jack Hoxie, set in the world of pop music.

Jon Cleary built a house on this block and it became his home for the rest of his life.

Jon Cleary wanted to write about the Opera House so Scobie Malone returned for Helga's Web, which was later filmed.

Jon Cleary returned to Scobie Malone for Ransom, set in New York, but then stopped writing about the detective as he did not wish to be trapped as a writer.

Jon Cleary did Peter's Pence a thriller; The Safe House, about World War II; A Sound of Lightning, set in Montana.

Jon Cleary had a big-selling success with High Road to China, an adventure story later filmed in 1982.

Jon Cleary published three more novels, all set in Australia: Miss Ambar Regrets, Morning's Gone and Four-Cornered Circle, then retired.

Jon Cleary met his wife Joy on his boat trip to England in 1946 and married her five days after they landed.

Joy Jon Cleary developed Alzheimer's disease and went to live in a nursing home prior to her death in 2003.

Jon Cleary was good friends with fellow writers Morris West and Alexander Baron.

Jon Cleary was a regular churchgoer, attending Mass every Sunday.

Jon Cleary once stated that the book which had most influenced him was The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene.