Ben Fuller (producer)

Biography

Fuller was born in London to compositor John Fuller and Harriett, née Jones. From December 1884 to February 1885 young Ben appeared in a juvenile production of The Pirates of Penzance at the Savoy Theatre; two years later he was a member of Montague Robey's Midget Minstrels and later joined Warwick Gray's Juvenile Opera Company. His father, also involved in the theatre, migrated to Australia in 1889. Ben followed him after touring England briefly and eventually joined his father in Adelaide. He had also learned to play the piano and the double bass by ear. In 1894, having been joined by younger brother John, the Fullers moved to Auckland, where the elder John set up waxworks and lantern shows with Ben as comedian. The family left Ben in charge in Dunedin and returned to Melbourne, but they soon returned after his success.

On 6 October 1900 Ben Fuller married Jessie Elizabeth Burton, née McDonald, a widow; she bore him a son in 1902 but died in May 1903. He married again, to Elizabeth Mary Thomson on 8 November 1905. The Fullers continued to tour around New Zealand and extended their circuit to Australia, eventually establishing John Fuller & Sons Ltd; Ben based himself in Sydney, where he acquired the house Ardenbraught in the suburb of Point Piper. He volunteered for active service in World War I. After the war in 1920 he donated £1000 to Vernon Treatt so that he could take up his Rhodes scholarship and he subsequently established the Fuller Trust for overseas training in agriculture. Knighted in the 1921 Birthday Honours, he contested Sydney in the 1922 state elections as an independent without success, and was a Nationalist candidate in the federal election of that year.

In 1923 the Fullers partnered with Hugh J. Ward and focused on musical comedy. The family built the St James Theatre in Sydney, and survived the Depression by installing cinema apparatuses in their theatres. After the brothers divided their assets, Ben Fuller was governing director of Fullers' Theatres Ltd and attempted to establish an English language opera company without success. In partnership with Garnet Carroll from 1939, he jointly established the Carroll-Fuller Theatre Company Pty Ltd in 1946. He was chairman of the Howard Prison Reform League, vice-president of the Sydney Industrial Blind Institution, and president of the Australian Council for International Social Service. From 1945 to 1947, he allowed his home Ardenbraught to be used by 280 officers and men from the Royal Netherlands Naval Air Force, who were operating from the flying boat base in Rose Bay. This fact is marked by a plaque outside the house. He died at St George's Hospital in London in 1952.