During his younger years, he spent time at Suva Boys Grammar School, until his whole family moved from Fiji to Sydney, Australia in 1939.

In the period he was studying interior design, Robin joined the cast of May Hollinworth's Metropolitan Players, as a repertory actor.

When Hollinworth withdrew from the Players due to health issues in 1950, Lovejoy began his directorial début as the new director of the play.

[2] In 1964, after nine years of working in the AETT, Lovejoy took charge of the development of Australian plays, and he was employed by the Old Tote Theatre Company in Sydney, as a director.

For the rest of his professional life, he worked for the Victorian State Opera and the Queensland Theatre Company, mostly serving as a director.

demanding, fiery, often impatient and tyrannical ... [but] he could be angelically patient, coaxing magic from [the] unplumbed depths of an actor’s art'.