Cliff Hardy is a fictional Australian private eye created by Peter Corris. He was first introduced in the 1980 novel The Dying Trade and featured in over 40 novels and short story collections. He was played by Bryan Brown in the 1983 film The Empty Beach . [1] [2]
Corris later recalled:
It was really just to imitate Raymond Chandler and Ross MacDonald and see if I could. I’d tried a historical novel based on my PHD thesis and about 18 different publishers rejected it. So I had this idea. I’d been reading Chandler and MacDonald recreationally for years, and I thought, well, I’d try this. I felt like I really knew how they worked and what the formula was like and what changes you could make. I thought, Sydney, San Francisco, LA, I felt like there was a symbiosis there and figured, have a go at what you know you can write. Imitation was the stimulus. But after a few books, I felt I had an individual voice and the confidence to play around with the formula, say what I wanted to say, shit on people I wanted to shit on, things like that, so it took off creatively after a very imitative start, you might say. [3]
Corris felt the character became more unique around the time of The Empty Beach. [3]
Introduced in The Dying Trade, Hardy had served during the Malayan Emergency, studied and university and worked as an insurance investigator.
He grew up in Maroubra and his mother was an alcoholic. Hardy has a house in Glebe and his tenant is a university student Hilde.
Corris said "I don’t do a lot of documentary or physical research. The ideas come from my own life, my imagination and what’s around, what’s in the newspaper, what I hear on the radio or see on TV, what friends tell me, you know, just the basics of the life around you." [3]
Hardy has been played by the following actors:
When asked about other actors who could play Hardy, Corris felt Simon Westaway, who played Peter Faithful in Phoenix , "would have been a very good Hardy. Hardy is a big, dark guy, bit of a hooked nose, hard look to him, but funny." Corris says Paul Hogan was once suggested, "and I thought, well, if you were going to go funny and quirky, well, not my first choice but I wouldn’t have set my mind against it if the money was right." However in 2013 he stated "if I had a choice, Russell Crowe. Right age, looks right, looking a bit knocked about, bloody good actor, and all he needs to do is just look… doesn’t need to say very much." [3]