Born in Sydney on 7 September 1933, Gary Vincent Scully was the son of Doris (née Bunyan) and Vincent Scully, a World War I Australian Army veteran working as a stock and station agent at Coolah, near Mudgee, New South Wales.
[1] Scully worked as a copy boy for Consolidated Press in 1950, obtaining a cadetship at The Daily Mirror the following year.
He worked for the Richmond River Express in Casino, New South Wales in 1951 and 1952 before moving to Brisbane where he obtained a cadetship at the ABC.
He married bank officer Lorraine Smith in 1955 and in ensuing years the couple had four children, Michael, Catherine, Susan and Anne.
Scully was appointed ABC foreign correspondent in Indonesia for two years in 1974 but fortunately was on leave in London at the time of the infamous Balibo killings in East Timor.