John Patrick O'Grady was an Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

n writer

Writer

A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....

. His works include the comic novel They're a Weird Mob

They're a Weird Mob

They're a Weird Mob is a 1966 film based on the novel of the same name by John O'Grady under the pen name "Nino Culotta", the name of the main character of the book. It was one of the last collaborations of the British filmmakers Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger...

(1957) and the poem The Integrated Adjective, sometimes known as Tumba-bloody-rumba.

Pseudonym

O'Grady chose to write under a variety of pseudonyms

Pen name

A pen name, nom de plume, or literary double, is a pseudonym adopted by an author. A pen name may be used to make the author's name more distinctive, to disguise his or her gender, to distance an author from some or all of his or her works, to protect the author from retribution for his or her...

, most famously as Nino Culotta for his books They're a Weird Mob, Cop This Lot, Gone Fishin ', and Gone Gougin' . Other examples include No Kava For Johnny, which is published under O'Grady's name, but contains a preface from the author claiming that the book had in fact been written by the eponymous character, Johnny.

Works

O'Grady's numerous works were originally published in hardback by Ure Smith with comic illustrations; many have frequently been re-issued by other publishing houses, generally facsimile editions in paperback.

• They're a Weird Mob
  They're a Weird Mob
  They're a Weird Mob is a 1966 film based on the novel of the same name by John O'Grady under the pen name "Nino Culotta", the name of the main character of the book. It was one of the last collaborations of the British filmmakers Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger...
  
  (Sydney: Ure Smith, 1957) and its sequels,
  • Cop This Lot
    Cop this Lot
    Cop this Lot is a popular Australian comic novel written by John O'Grady under the pen name "Nino Culotta", the name of the main character of the book. It is a sequel to the even more popular They're a Weird Mob-Plot:...
    
    (Sydney: Ure Smith, 1960)
  • Gone Fishin' (Sydney: Ure Smith, 1962)
  • Gone Gougin' (Sydney: Ure Smith, 1975)
• No Kava for Johnny (Sydney: Ure Smith, 1961) illustrated by 'wep'
• The Things They Do To You (Sydney: Ure Smith, 1963) illustrated by 'wep'
• Aussie English: An Explanation of the Australian Idiom (Sydney: Ure Smith, 1965)
• Ladies and Gentlemen (with Douglass Baglin) (Sydney: Ure Smith, 1966)
• Gone Troppo (Sydney: Ure Smith, 1968)
• O'Grady Sez (Sydney: Ure Smith, 1969)
• So Sue Me! (Sydney: Ure Smith, 1970)
• Are You Irish or Normal? (as by Sean O'Grada) (Sydney: Ure Smith, 1970)
• Aussie Etiket; or, Doing Things the Aussie Way (Sydney: Ure Smith, 1971)
• It's Your Shout, Mate!: Aussie pubs and Aussie beers (Sydney: Ure Smith, 1972)
• Smokey Joe the Fish-eater (Sydney: Ure Smith, 1972)
• Survival in the Doghouse (Sydney: Ure Smith, 1973)
• Now Listen, Mate! [re-issue of So sue me!] (Sydney: Ure Smith, 1974)
• There Was A Kid: An Autobiography, Part One (Sydney: Ure Smith, 1977)
• Down Under To Up Over (with Molly O'Grady) (Sydney: Lansdowne Press, 1980)

Aussie Etiket was translated into Japanese as Ōsutoraria-ryū Echiketto: Oretachi Dattara Kōsuru Ne (Tōkyō : Kindai Bungeisha, 1993)

A collection of the papers of O'Grady, ranging from 1942–1986, are available in manuscript form at the National Library of Australia

National Library of Australia

The National Library of Australia is the largest reference library of Australia, responsible under the terms of the National Library Act for "maintaining and developing a national collection of library material, including a comprehensive collection of library material relating to Australia and the...

, Canberra.

Family

O'Grady's son, John O'Grady, Jnr, was at one point the head of situation comedy at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Australian Broadcasting Corporation

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly referred to as "the ABC" , is Australia's national public broadcaster...

 and winner of the 1987 Television Drama Award for ABC TV

ABC1

ABC1 was a United Kingdom based television channel from Disney using the branding of the Disney owned American network, ABC.The channel initially launched exclusively on the British digital terrestrial television platform Freeview on 27 September 2004. On 10 December 2004 it was launched on...

 series Mother and Son

Mother and Son

Mother and Son is a Logie Award-winning Australian television sitcom produced by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation from 16 January 1984 until 21 March 1994. The show stars Ruth Cracknell, Garry McDonald, Henri Szeps and Judy Morris...

presented by the Australian Human Rights Commission. O'Grady's brother, Frank, was also an author and published The Golden Valley (1955), Goonoo Goonoo (1956) and Hanging Rock (1957); all published by Cassell. Where O'Grady's novels were light satirical works, Frank O'Grady wrote pioneering sagas set in western New South Wales.