George Marlow

Who was George Marlow?

George Marlow was an Australian theatrical entrepreneur born in London of Jewish extraction, noted for bringing melodrama and pantomime to Sydney audiences in the early 1900s.

He came to Australia as a child, and started acting and playing piano for stage plays. He was playing with the William Anderson organisation in Sydney and Brisbane in 1899 as was his future wife Ethel Buckley. Ethel had made a mark as Puck in a George Rignold production of Midsummer Night's Dream at the age of twelve, a role she reprised several times, then melodramas such as The Luck of Roaring Camp in 1907. She worked six months in London After her marriage to Marlow, she starred in his shows. Her most famous role was as "Cigarette" in an adaptation of the Ouida novel Under Two Flags in 1915.

He became involved in the managerial side of the theatre, first with William Anderson, then from around 1904 with the Fuller family chain. By 1907 he had his own company, first leasing a theatre in Newcastle. By Christmas 1910 he was lessee of, then a year later purchased The Princess's Theatre, Melbourne. In 1911 he built The Adelphi, in Castlereagh Street, Haymarket, Sydney, the largest theatre in Australia.