He then worked for Tattersall's Lottery and as a junior solicitor's clerk, when at age sixteen he decided to join a semi-professional troupe of entertainers which toured Tasmania in a two horse caravan.

For a time he worked as door-to-door salesman for a wholesale grocery firm, then he became a novice in a Sydney seminary, but left it in 1905 to try and break into theatre.

[4] He struggled with financial difficulties before winning the leads in two films, The Silence of Dean Maitland and The Shepherd of the Southern Cross, both opening in 1914; the first was a success.

On 22 December 1913 Shirley married New Zealand singer Ellen Newcomb Hall at St Mary's Cathedral in Sydney; they would separate in 1920 and divorce in 1940.

[10][11] However, Shirley felt his career as a stage actor in Australia had been greatly hurt by taking on two of its most powerful producers and he decided to try his luck overseas.

He won roles in One Man's Evil (1915), Bawb O' Blue Ridge (1916),[13] The Fall of a Nation (1916)[14] and Branding Broadway (1918) alongside William S.

[15] Shirley also ran a photography business on Hollywood Boulevard, where he was a pioneer in the use of artificial lighting for portraiture, and three-dimensional rather that painted backgrounds.

[16] Shirley returned to Sydney in April 1920 to found his own company, setting up at Rose Bay with the slogan "Moving Pictures Made in Australia for the World".

[17] Although one movie, The Throwback, did begin production, he did not complete it and Shirley was declared bankrupt again in 1925 after a court action by his cinematographer, Ernest Higgins.

[18] He managed to recover, playing Steve Gunn in a stage adaptation of The Sentimental Bloke in 1923 and setting up Pyramid Pictures to produce a film based on The Mystery of a Hansom Cab (1925).