Travers Vale

Travers Vale, born Solomon Flohm, (31 January 1865 – 10 January 1927) was an English-born silent film director, theatre impresario, playwright, and actor. Raised primarily in Victoria, Australia, he worked as a photographer, playwright and theatre manager in Victoria, Southern Australia, and New Zealand prior to his career in film. In his early career in theatre in Australia he was known by the name S. F. Travers Vale under which name he authored his first known play, The Mystery of a Hansom Cab (1888); an adaptation of the 1886 novel of the same name by Fergus Hume. He established his own theatre troupe, The Travers Vale Dramatic Company, which was in residence at the Theatre Royal, Adelaide in 1889 and the Auckland Opera House in New Zealand in 1890. In 1892 and 1893 he was the business manager of the American husband wife magician team of Charles N. Steen and Mrs. Steen. Sometime after September 1893, but before the birth of his eldest daughter, Vale and his wife, Leah "Lily" Vale, left Australia and resided in India for a brief period before traveling to the United Kingdom. The couple's first child, Violet Rachel Flohm Vale, was born in Cardiff, Wales in May 1894. By 1898 the family had moved to the United States with Vale's first original play written in that country be... ()