Albert Wilhelm Anton Brandon-Cremer (1871 - 1959), was a key player in the history of the New Zealand and Australian theatre industry from 1896 to the mid-1950s. From his start as an actor in Auckland to his heyday in the early 1900s as a company manager and owner, he toured virtually every town in Australasia with the Brandon-Cremer Players. Brandon-Cremer has the distinction of a record 54 weeks of non-stop stage production in 1917. He also produced at least two early silent films. His directorial debut was the first silent movie travelogue ever shot in Tasmania in 1927. His daughter, Gertrude Brandon-Cremer, was a child star of the stage during the first 20 years of the 20th century and his son, Ernest Gustav Brandon-Cremer, was a well-known adventurer and documentary film maker. The family name generated thousands of newspaper articles over the course of Albert's life. In Adelaide, 1952, Brandon-Cremer was once introduced in an interview by Australian Broadcasting Corporation Radio with "its really, um… rather difficult to think of any theatre movement in Australia, in the total history of the Australian theatre, without thinking of you". Early life Albert Wilhelm Anton Brandon-Cremer was born on 7 November 1871 in Newry, County Down, Ireland, to parents Gustav Caesar Antonin Cremer and Saretta Frances Brandon. Albert was the fifth child in a family of eight brothers and one sister. The model Victorian Brandon-Cremer parents instilled a tradition of music and literature in their children, many of whom would go on to perform on stage with various skills and talents. At age 15, Albert was indentured to the New Zealand Shipping Company and made several trips from the UK to New Zealand and sailed around the world during the following years. New Zealand At the age of 19, Albert departed England for a new life in New Zealand aboard the SS Rangatiki on 22 August 1891, arriving in Wellington, New Zealand, on 22 December 1891. By early 1892, he was working as a farmhand at the Frimley Sheep Station, outside Wellington. His acting career began shortly after, while working with the Vivian Theatrical Co., then the Duncan Theatrical Co., before joining the Cowan & Amy Vaughan Amazon Co.—all in quick succession. The first mention of Albert working in New Zealand was for the Amy Vaughn Company in July 1892. On 7 January 1893, while touring New Zealand, in the small booming gold