Julian Wylie

About 1910, he became the business manager and agent of David Devant, an illusionist, then took on other clients, and formed a partnership with James W. Tate.

Born in Southport, Lancashire, Wylie was the son of Henschel and Bertha Samuelson, tobacconists originally from Prussia.

[2] In fact, the name of Samuelson was a patronymic drawn from Henschel's father, Samuel Metzenberg, of Lissa in the Prussian Grand Duchy of Posen.

His earliest contacts with the world of entertainment came through his younger brothers, Lauri Wylie, who was first active as an actor in the late 1890s, and G. B. Samuelson, who operated cinemas.

[8] Another story is that Wylie married a much older woman with a small son, she lent him one pound, and he established himself in London as an agent.

[9] In December 1911, from an office at 50 Langham Street, Wylie advertised his services in The Sporting Life as "An Ideas Agent".

The two men were quite different, Tate mild and genial, getting on easily with everyone, Wylie suspicious and aggressive, with a deep sense of inferiority.

As an agent, Wylie boasted in The Stage Year Book 1917: "During 1916 I made Contracts for the following Artistes: Bairnsfather's "Fragments from France", Daisy Burrell, Gladys Cooper, Phyllis Dare, David Devant, Fred Duprez, Fred Edwards and May Yates, Isobel Elsom, Paul England, Bert Errol, William Fulbrook, Johnny Fuller, Hammond and Swanston, Mabel Love, Clarice Mayne and "THAT", Billy Merson, Miles Stavordale Quintet, Ruby Miller, Ernest H. Mills, Lily Morris, Owen Nares, Rebla, Ida Rene, Ritchie Troupe, Gus Sohlke, Sadrenne, Storri, Vesta Tilley, Madge Titheradge, Deane Tribune, Frank Whitman, Oswald Williams, &c. &c."[15]In 1920, as Julian Ulric Samuelson, Wylie joined the United Grand Lodge of England, becoming a Freemason.

"[24] In its obituary, The Era noted that Wylie "had a flair for casting, and it was never more finely used than in his choice of John Gielgud, Edward Chapman, and Adele Dixon for the Companions.