Ivor Novello

Ivor Novello, born David Ivor Davies on 15 January 1893 in Cardiff, Wales, was an actor, composer, dramatist, and singer who became one of the most prominent British entertainers of the first half of the twentieth century. He died on 6 March 1951. His Broadway credits included the revue Andre Charlot's Revue of 1924, the play A Party, Charlot Revue, Fresh Fields, and The Rat, and he appeared on Broadway in 1930.

Novello was born to David Davies, a rent collector for the city council, and Clara Novello Davies, an internationally recognized singing teacher and choral conductor. As a boy he competed successfully as a singer in the Welsh Eisteddfod. His early education took place privately in Cardiff and later in Gloucester, where he studied harmony and counterpoint under Herbert Brewer, the cathedral organist. He subsequently won a scholarship to Magdalen College School in Oxford, where he sang as a solo treble in the college choir. By the age of fifteen, one of his songs had already been published. After leaving school he gave piano lessons in Cardiff before relocating to London in 1913 with his mother, taking a flat above the Strand Theatre that remained his London home for the rest of his life.

In London, Novello found a mentor in Sir Edward Marsh, a patron of the arts and secretary to Winston Churchill, who encouraged his composing and facilitated introductions within the industry. Novello adopted his mother's middle name as his professional surname, though he did not change it legally until 1927. At the outset of the First World War in 1914, he wrote the song "Keep the Home Fires Burning," setting music to a lyric by the American Lena Guilbert Ford. The song became a major popular success and brought him widespread recognition at the age of twenty-one. He eventually reported for service with the Royal Naval Air Service in June 1916 as a probationary flight sub-lieutenant, and after two aircraft crashes, Marsh arranged his transfer to the Admiralty office in central London for the remainder of the war.

His first stage success came with Theodore and Co in 1916, a production by George Grossmith Jr. and Edward Laurillard for which Novello co-wrote the score with the young Jerome Kern. That same year he contributed to André Charlot's revue See-Saw, and in 1917 he provided additional numbers for the operetta Arlette. He continued contributing to musical comedies and revues after the war, including Who's Hooper in 1919, The Golden Moth in 1921 for which he wrote the entire score, and contributions to Charlot revues including Tabs in 1918, A to Z in 1921, and Puppets in 1924. Also in 1917, Marsh introduced him to actor Bobbie Andrews, who became his life partner, and through Andrews he met the young Noël Coward.

Alongside his work as a composer, Novello built a parallel career as an actor, beginning in silent film. Swiss director Louis Mercanton cast him as the romantic lead in The Call of the Blood in 1920 on the basis of a publicity photograph. He made his stage debut in 1921 in Deburau by Sacha Guitry. In 1923 he made his American film debut in D. W. Griffith's The White Rose. The following year he co-wrote, produced, and starred in the play The Rat, which was subsequently adapted into a film in 1925 and generated two sequels in 1926 and 1928. In 1926 he played the title character in the first London production of Ferenc Molnár's Liliom. He starred in two silent films directed by Alfred Hitchcock, The Lodger and Downhill, both released in 1927. Gainsborough Pictures offered him a lucrative contract during this period, which allowed him to purchase a country house in Littlewick Green near Maidenhead, which he renamed Redroofs.

From the 1930s onward, Novello concentrated increasingly on writing and performing in his own West End musical productions, often composed in the style of operetta and frequently written to libretti by Christopher Hassall. He regularly performed alongside Zena Dare, writing parts specifically for her. Among the most prominent of these productions were Glamorous Night in 1935 and The Dancing Years in 1939. His later stage musicals included Perchance to Dream in 1945, King's Rhapsody in 1949, and Gay's the Word in 1951. The Ivor Novello Awards were established in his name in 1955.