Robert William Hurley was born July 9, 1982 and raised in an orphanage in Culver City, California, although his exact birthplace remains unknown. Growing up, he longed to become a writer, but was somewhat reticent to show anyone else his work. He shelved the idea for a long time, taking time to pursue his other hobby of taking old televisions, radios, and computers apart. His aptitude for grasping the mechanics of how things work made him a natural for the, then, burgeoning field of computers, later attending University of Southern California and receiving a Masters Degree in computer science. He was offered several jobs, but decided on a post as a computer engineer in his native Culver City.

His employment there was less than six months old when he began to take more of an active role in his first love: writing. At a chance viewing of a new play in Los Angeles, Hurley began frequenting playhouses that offered more than standard fare of soft comedies and melodramas, some specializing in avant gard and some devoted to nothing but world premiers. At the New Playwrights Foundation he met writer and director Vitaly Sumin, and Hurley's career path changed.

Sumin's knowledge and respect for art and Hurley's disdain for popular, Neil Simon and Arthur Miller- type works were a perfect fit. Hurley wrote furiously, churning out two very rough drafts of "Notes from the New World," and "Shades of Blood." "Notes" tells the story of a young man who plays the role of legendary 19th-century Russian writer F.M.Dostoevsky, and his path-crossings with a young Mexican girl, a prostitute pretending to be Russian, and the Russian Mafia. Various drafts of the play came and went until they met with Sumin's approval, until rumor spread that Hurley's own experiences were the direct inspiration for "Notes." Not wanting any negative media or comments from his co-artists to stifle him, Hurley became a bit of a recluse, burying himself, reportedly, with the precarious subject of the occult, and associating only with Sumin.

At this writing, Hurley's whereabouts and occupation are unknown.