Fowler was born in
Darlinghurst or
Ultimo, Sydney, youngest of four sons of musician Frank Harry Fowler (c. 1857 – 9 December 1893) and Fannie Adele Fowler, née Ellard (c. 1861 – 10 August 1928), better known as the actress Ethel Adele, whose sister Ada Kate Ellard married
Garnet Walch. He was only a few months old when his father died, and his mother, though not well provided for, at the
Princess Theatre in 1896. Other notable amateurs with McMahon around that time were
Doris Fitton, Jack Cussen, son of
Judge Cussen, and Louie Dunn, teacher of
Irene Mitchell. In 1911
Bert Bailey,
Edmund Duggan and
Julius Grant combined to form the Bert Bailey Dramatic Company, and leased
King's Theatre from
William Anderson, and Fowler joined the company. He played Billy Bearup in a touring production of
On Our Selection and back at King's Theatre in
The Squaw Man on 22 April 1916. He was living with his mother at 94 Hotham Street,
East St Kilda, Victoria when he enlisted with the
First AIF in April 1916, and served as a private in France, returning to Australia in 1919. He rejoined Bailey. In 1923 he joined
Allan Wilkie's company, playing in
Macbeth, ''
A Midsummer Night's Dream, Henry V'', and others. Meanwhile he assembled an independent amateur company, who performed
Darnley's comedy
Facing the Music from 8 January 1921 at
The Playhouse. Audience included members of the 3rd Battalion Pioneers Ibsen's
Ghosts followed on 27 September 1922. He became associated with the
Australian Institute of Arts and Literature (1921–1927), a Melbourne club for the Arts élite whose existence rose and fell with the presidency of Sir
Robert Garran. A dramatic group was formed within the organisation which, led by Fowler, presented several dramas, one at the clubroom above or adjacent the
Palace Theatre overlooking
Bourke Street, and another at
The Playhouse. The Institute appears not to have sponsored any further productions after 1922. In 1925, with no backing and £100 from his own savings, Fowler founded
The Little Art Theatre Company, often referred to as the
Little Art Company and that February opened in Hobart. The travelling cast was four men and four women, with Berta Howden pianist. Despite good reviews the tour was a financial failure.
Other interests He was a prominent member of the Play Lovers' Club, which read Chekhov's
The Seagull in August 1926. Fowler produced plays for other amateur groups, —
Sunset by
Jerome K. Jerome for the
Old Wesley Collegians' Dramatic Society He produced
W. W. Jacobs'
The Warming Pan as a
radio play on station
3LO in 1930. He helped found a repertory theatre in Bendigo 1930. In 1932 he produced plays at Ballarat. He has been credited as founder and conductor of the Brisbane Liedertafel. At an all-Australian programme 12 April 1928 he staged his own
A Heroine of Russia (1916)
Greater Love, a "comedy-drama of the war, the stage and school life", loosely adapted from his own novel,
The Elusive Ideal. ==Assessments==