Actor, dramatist, radio scriptwriter.
Ron Ingleby was a prolific Australian scriptwriter who wrote many serials, among them I Hate Crime (the Larry Kent detective series), and The Western Trail, while also contributing to multi-author series like Thirty Minutes to Go and Mission to the Nation. He also wrote a number of one-off radio dramas.
Ingleby's early career saw him involved in theatre and radio in Hobart during the late-1930s and early-1940s. He wrote and appeared in radio productions with the 7HT Studio Players, worked as a radio announcer and contributed material to stage revues - including Anchors Away (1942). At some stage during the mid-1940s Ingleby moved to Melbourne where he established himself as radio journalist, notably as a crime reporter.
In 1949 his Larry Kent serial, I Hate Crime, about a New York crime reporter who comes to Australia as a private detective, became a huge hit around the country. The serial, which comprised more than 150 weekly episodes, also later spawned a Larry Kent novel, novelettes and comic book industry, although Ingleby never contributed material to any of these adaptations.
In the early 1950s Ingleby wrote a number of radio dramas for Melbourne station 3KZ, among them Two Eyes Had He, In the Place I Die and Man Divided (1952). It was as a writer of serials, however, that he became best known. In collaboration with producer Walter Pym he churned out a seemingly endless supply of dramas, often with an historical and 'real life' bent. His credits during the years 1953 and 1954, for example, included: Counterfeit (1953), Emergency, Pursuit, and Cargo (1954). His contributions to multi-author series around this time included 'Singapore Story' (Thirty Minutes to Go, 1954) and 'Guaranteed Home Made Juvenile Delinquents' (Mission to the Nation, 1954).
