Alias Jimmy Valentine stands as the work most closely associated with Paul Armstrong, a playwright who worked in the American theater during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The play represents the kind of dramatic material that Armstrong, operating across several roles in the industry, chose to bring to the stage.

Armstrong was born in St. Joseph in 1869 and went on to work as a playwright, theatrical producer, and screenwriter — a combination of roles that positioned him at multiple points in the process of dramatic production. As a United States citizen, he built his career within the American theatrical world, and Alias Jimmy Valentine became the notable work that attached his name to a recognizable piece of stage history. His work across those three professional capacities — writing, producing, and contributing to the emerging medium of screen — suggests a practical engagement with the industry rather than a narrowly literary one.

He died in New York City in 1915. The fact that Armstrong worked simultaneously as playwright, theatrical producer, and screenwriter points to a career spent navigating the overlapping demands of live performance and an industry beginning to find new forms. Alias Jimmy Valentine remained the work most firmly tied to his name, and it was as the author of that play that Armstrong left his professional mark on the record. His death in New York City in 1915 closed a career that had moved between the page, the stage, and the screen, with the play bearing his name as a United States playwright serving as the most concrete evidence of his place in the period's theatrical production.