Singer, comic, patterologist, song writer, revue and sketch writer, revue producer.
Born in Sheffield, South Yorkshire (England), Art Slavin immigrated to Australia with his parents, when he was about six years of age. It is believed that the family may have settled for a time in the Blue Mountains township of Wellington (NSW), where a number of Slavins had already established themselves. In 1903, he married Alberta B. C. Dutton in Wellington and the couple later had three children, two girls (one of whom died in infancy) and son Eric, before divorcing in 1914. Although little information regarding Slavin's early career has yet come to light, it is known that he initially pursued a career as a chemist before turning to variety entertainment. During his career, which spanned ca. 1900 to the late 1920s, he was associated with most of Australia's leading vaudeville companies, including Harry Rickards, the Fullers, Ted Holland, J. C. Bain, Jacky Landow, Post Mason, Harry Sadler, Dix-Baker, and Harry Clay.
The fact that Slavin began appearing on the Tivoli circuit as early as 1907 indicates that he had already established a reputation for himself prior to his first engagement with Harry Rickards, as the entrepreneur did not engage amateurs or emerging professionals for his circuit. As with most other Australian performers on the Tivoli circuit, Slavin accepted engagements with other firms around Australia and New Zealand whenever he was temporarily off contract; in this way, he maintained a strong industry presence, primarily as a solo performer, for upwards of a decade. Sometime around 1910, he teamed up with fellow vaudevillian and ex-Pollards' Lilliputian performer Lily Thompson, forming the sketch/patter and song-and-dance act billed simply as Slavin and Thompson. The pair continued to work on the Tivoli circuit (after Rickards's death in 1911) up until around 1914, at which time they joined Harry Clay's variety firm.
Slavin and Thompson maintained a regular association with Clay during the remainder of the war years. Their first two years were spent entertaining audiences at the Bridge Theatre, Newtown, and the Coronation Theatre, Leichhardt, due to the entrepreneur's decision in December 1913 to limit his operations to just two Sydney venues and the annual six-month-long regional Queensland tour. When Clay began expanding his operations in 1916 to once again include a suburban circuit and a south-western New South Wales circuit, Slavin was given the opportunity to manage one of Clay's four musical comedy companies. Each troupe rotated around Clay's circuit, a week playing at Newtown, a week playing around Sydney, and two weeks playing up to thirteen towns on the regional NSW circuit, which followed the railway line west to Katoomba and Bathurst and south to Wagga Wagga and Albury.
The rise in popularity of the revusical (a one-act musical comedy genre) in 1916 saw Slavin also began to also write and direct productions for Clay. Among the artists who appeared in the Slavin-led troupes were many Australian performers who already established high-profile local careers or who would later do so. Among the most notable were Amy Rochelle (Fullers' principal girl), veteran minstrel comedian Wal Rockley (of the Rockley Brothers), George Sorlie, Billy Cass, English comedian Denis Carney, Bert Corrie and Doris Baker, George Crotty, Courtney Ford and Ivy Davis, Alec Davidson, and Ernest Laurie.
After touring Clay's Queensland regional circuit in 1917, Slavin was given the prestigious responsibility of managing the company during its 1918 tour. Although Clay was forced to cancel his Queensland commitments in 1919 in response to both the Spanish influenza epidemic and increased competition from film exhibitors, his operations in New South Wales were expansive enough to provide Slavin and Thompson with regular engagements until the mid-1920s. They are also known to have worked for other firms during those years, most notably on the Fullers' Australian and New Zealand circuits.
One of the pioneers of the Australian revusical genre, Art Slavin, along with Nat Phillips, Bert Le Blanc, Arthur Morley, Joe Rox, George Pagden, Walter Johnson, Victor Prince, and Jack Kearns and Harry Sadler, played a significant role in providing a constant flow of new material and employment opportunities as the local variety industry underwent enormous growth between 1915 and 1918. Among his more popular works were Fun on a Ranch (1916), Casey's Ashes (1917), Sock the Kaiser, and Thirty Thousand Miles a Minute (both 1918).
Slavin and Thompson are known to have had at least one child, a son named Frank, born in 1911.
