Frank Harvey (Australian screenwriter)

Frank Harvey (22 December 1885 – 10 October 1965) was a British-born actor, producer and writer best known for his work in Australia.

Frank Harvey was born Harvey Ainsworth Hilton in 1883 in Earls Court, London, his father was John Ainsworth Hilton and mother was Elizabeth Hilton. His occupation in the British 1911 Census was "actor" and was married with Grace Hilton, née Ackerman. He had 3 sisters, called Maria, Cora and Caroline according to British 1891 Census.

Caroline Gladys Hilton was married to Hanns Wyldeck and from that union was born in 1914 Harvey Martin Wyldeck also an actor who died in England 1989. He was the cousin to Frank Harvey, Harvey Ainsworth Hilton's son from Grace Hilton. Martin Wyldeck's son Christopher Wyldeck also moved to Australia in the 1970s and is a TV director.

Harvey's father was also a writer.

Harvey studied acting under Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree and played Shakespearean parts in the Lyceum Theatre in London. In 1914 he was engaged by J. C. Williamson to play in Australia with Nancye Stewart, and did not return to Britain until 1926.

In 1922 and 1923 he played the leading man in a number of J & N Tait productions with the Emélie Polini troupe and toured Australia and New Zealand.

When Harvey returned to Britain, it took him several months to re-establish himself there, but was cast in The Transit of Venus and then had little difficulty finding work, being particularly well regarded for a role in Jew Suss. Acting in this saw him have a nervous breakdown and he was ordered to take three months off.

Harvey also had two plays produced, The Last Enemy and Cape Forlorn.

By 1931 he was back in Melbourne to appear in a series of plays for J.C. Williamson, including On the Spot and a production of his own Cape Forlorn. Harvey said he preferred working on stage to screen:

An actor on the screen is not an actor at all, but a robot. In the days of the silent films, an actor could have a distinct screen personality; but now that speech has come, all that is ended. After the novelty has worn off, talking films will settle down here, as they have abroad, into a mere substitute for the silent films, and will not interfere in any way with the prosperity of the legitimate theatre. The screen should stick to the sphere in which it is really capable – the sphere of spectacular production, such as Iies outside the ambit of the legitimate stage. It is really a glorified sideshow.

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