Struck Oil is an 1874 play set during the American Civil War and a 1919 Australian silent film, now considered lost.
J. C. Williamson was an American leading actor who had toured Australia and just married Maggie Moore when he read a one-act play called The Dead, or Five Years Away by Irish miner and amateur playwright Sam Smith.
[4] The play was a great success, ultimately selling 93,000 tickets in a city of 110,000 people, and proved equally popular around the rest of the country.
[6] Williamson used this money to launch his career as a theatre manager and Maggie Moore became one of the most popular performers on the Australian stage.
[7][8] In 1880 L. M. Bayless, a rival theatre manager, mounted a production of Struck Oil at the Academy of Music, Adelaide, but was deterred by Williamson's threat of legal action[9] although he may have been breaking no (South Australian) law.
Maggie Moore married Harry Roberts in 1902 and he became her acting and business partner, appearing with her in several productions of Struck Oil.