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Actor, Cameo & Crew Profiles > Actor Profiles > Alan Hopgood

Born September 29th 1934 in Launceston, Tasmania, Alan Hopgood was schooled in Melbourne and went on to graduate from the University of Melbourne with a degree in teaching. After several acting roles as a child, he continued writing and eventually left teaching for a full-time acting and writing career.

In 1963, he had his first major success as a playwright with And The Big Men Fly for the Melbourne Theatre Company, where he also spent ten years as an actor. He went on to write The Golden Legion of Cleaning Women in 1964, and Private Yuk Objects in 1966, and in 1974, And The Big Men Fly was adapted for television, followed seven years later by its sequel, And Here Comes Bucknuckle. This was followed by several other series written for television, including The Cheerful Cuckold and The Bush Bunch - both of which saw him awarded with AWGIEs.

One of Hopgood's first television acting roles was as Dr Matthew Reed in the soap opera Bellbird, a role he played for six years. Between 1981 and 1984, he played the role of Wally Wallace in Prisoner, and in 1986, he spent three months playing Jack Lassiter in Neighbours. In 2013, twenty seven years after last appearing, he returned to the role of Jack for a one-month guest stint. Alan also served as a scriptwriter on both Prisoner and Neighbours. Over a fifty-three year career in television acting, his other credits have included Matlock Police, The Flying Doctors, A Country Practice and Blue Heelers, as well as numerous other well-loved Australian soaps, dramas and TV movies.

After surviving the illness, Hopgood went on to write Surviving Prostate Cancer: One Man's Journey and adapted it into a play entitled For Better, For Worse about his experiences. He continued to use the theatre to address health issues that people find difficult to talk about, including The Carer, which addressed Alzheimer's disease, and featured Charles 'Bud' Tingwell in over 250 performances, across Australia. His other health plays include Four Funerals In One Day (on the subject of palliative care) and My Dog Has Stripes (on the subject of mental illness).

In 2005, Alan Hopgood was made a Member of the Order of Australia, both for his services to the performing arts, and to the community through his raising awareness of men's health issues.

Profile by Steve

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