acting debut at the Manchester Repertory Theatre on 17 December 1945. He was paid £5 per week for twice-nightly performances. In eight months with Fortescue's he appeared in 33 plays and gave 396 performances. During this time Lowe began a romantic relationship with Joan Cooper (1922–1989), a married actress in the company whose husband also began an affair at about the same time. Arthur and Joan were engaged in June 1946 and lived together from August. After Joan's divorce came through they married at a registry office in Robert Adam Street, The Strand, London, on 10 January 1948. Joan had a son, David Gatehouse, from her first marriage. Another son, Stephen Lowe, was born on 23 January 1953. The couple remained together until Lowe's death. Lowe worked with repertory companies around the country. After a year at the County Theatre, Hereford, 1946-1947, he moved to London in 1948 and for the next three years mostly worked in South London theatres. An early brief film role was as a reporter for Tit-Bits magazine, near the end of Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949). His first West End role came in 1950, as Wilson the butler in Guy Bolton's Larger Than Life. Lowe became known for his character roles, which in 1952 included a breakthrough part as Senator Brockbank in the musical Call Me Madam at the London Coliseum. Other roles in musicals included a part in the 1954 London revival of Pal Joey and eighteen months as the salesman in the first West End production of The Pajama Game, from 1955 to 1957. His name first appeared in lights in 1957, at the Piccadilly Theatre, with the part of Bert Vokes in the murder melodrama A Dead Secret. This also brought his first West End reviews. Lowe made his first television appearance in 1951, in an episode of the BBC series I Made News. He would work in television every year afterwards, until his death. 1950s roles included various minor parts in dramas, including the crime series Murder Bag. He played the role of the gunsmith in Leave It to Todhunter (1958), appeared in the comedy series Time Out for Peggy, and played a fussy, nervous character in an episode of Dial 999. His first regular television part was as ship steward Sydney Barker in the ABC-TV series All Aboard (1958-1959). In 1960 Lowe took up a regular role as draper and