Marlow was born Joseph Lewis Marks (or Marx) to Morris Marks (1834 – 21 January 1920) and his wife Celia Marks, née Jones, (1835 – 29 December 1898). Among his siblings were A. Adolph Marks (c. 1871 – 22 May 1956), who would establish A. A. Marks Ltd., wholesale tobacconists, and Alfred Isaac Marks (c. 1873 – 21 August 1947), later business manager for George Marlow Dramatic Company and treasurer of several of Marlow's theatres, and married actress Miss Elwyn Harvey on 24 December 1913. He came to Australia as a child, and started acting and playing piano for stage plays. He was playing with the
William Anderson organisation and Brisbane in 1899 as was
Ethel Buckley (born c. 1885), whom he married around 1901. 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 (c. 1910) 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. By 1907 he had his own company, first leasing a theatre in
Newcastle.
The Bad Girl of the Family was his first production in the new theatre, followed by the
George Fowler musical
The Fatal Wedding and the melodrama
The Rosary. He took
The Bad Girl of the Family to London around the same time. They were still in UK in 1912 After purchasing the Princess's Theatre, he hired as manager of The Adelphi
George Willoughby (full name George Willoughby Dowse), In 1915 Marlow in partnership with
Ben Fuller bought out Willoughby. Some years later it became the Tivoli. Marlow also directed some feature films,
Driving a Girl to Destruction (1911) and
Angel of his Dreams (1912). ==His leading actors==