Ivor Novello(1893-1951)
- Writer
- Actor
- Music Department
While his special gifts seemed to lie in music and composing, the
dapper, multi-talented Welsh actor Ivor Novello (ne David Ivor Davies),
with his leading-man good looks, had a strong affinity for the camera.
Born in Cardiff, Wales, in 1893, he was the son of a tax-collector
father and a well-known singing teacher mother. His prodigious musical
skills were evident fairly early. Trained at the Magdalen College Choir
School on a soprano scholarship, he soon began writing songs under the
name Ivor Novello. In his overall career, Novello would write over 250
songs, a large percentage of them uplifting, touchingly sentimental and
war-inspired morale boosters. He moved with his family to London in
1914, and became an overnight celebrity after composing the patriotic
World War I standard "Keep the Home Fires Burning," which was
introduced much later in the film
The Lost Squadron (1932).
Novello then switched to pursue acting and debuted with a role in
The Call of the Blood (1921) [The Call
of the Blood], a French romantic melodrama which earned him promising
notices. Other roles that ensured his status as a screen idol followed,
including
The Man Without Desire (1923),
which he produced. He wrote and appeared in the successful 1924 play
"The Rat," which transferred quite well to film the following year
(The Rat (1925)). This also inspired two
sequels --
The Triumph of the Rat (1926)
and
The Return of the Rat (1929).
The actor's film peak occurred headlining two of
Alfred Hitchcock's early
suspense thrillers, serving as the put-upon protagonist in both the
silent classic
The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927)
and the lesser-received Downhill (1927).
Novello had a fine, well-modulated speaking voice that transferred
easily to talkies. Into the 1930s, he wrote and starred in
Symphony in Two Flats (1930)
and went on to remake
The Phantom Fiend (1932) successfully. During
this time he also wrote the dialogue for
Tarzan the Ape Man (1932), the
first of the jungle series to star
Johnny Weissmuller and
Maureen O'Sullivan. Novello's
last film was Autumn Crocus (1934),
after which he decided to devote himself full time to music and
theater.
He went on to earn rave reviews for his opulent, romantically
melodramatic stagings of "Glamorous Night" (1935), "The Dancing Years"
(1939) and "Perchance to Dream" (1945). He wrote eight musicals in all
and appeared in six of them, all of them non-singing parts.
His longtime companion of 35 years, actor
Robert Andrews, was with Novello
when Novello died suddenly on March 6, 1951 of a coronary thrombosis
only hours after performing in his own play "The King's Rhapsody."
Hugely popular in his time (though virtually unknown in America),
Novello's lasting influence on film, theater and especially music
cannot be denied.
dapper, multi-talented Welsh actor Ivor Novello (ne David Ivor Davies),
with his leading-man good looks, had a strong affinity for the camera.
Born in Cardiff, Wales, in 1893, he was the son of a tax-collector
father and a well-known singing teacher mother. His prodigious musical
skills were evident fairly early. Trained at the Magdalen College Choir
School on a soprano scholarship, he soon began writing songs under the
name Ivor Novello. In his overall career, Novello would write over 250
songs, a large percentage of them uplifting, touchingly sentimental and
war-inspired morale boosters. He moved with his family to London in
1914, and became an overnight celebrity after composing the patriotic
World War I standard "Keep the Home Fires Burning," which was
introduced much later in the film
The Lost Squadron (1932).
Novello then switched to pursue acting and debuted with a role in
The Call of the Blood (1921) [The Call
of the Blood], a French romantic melodrama which earned him promising
notices. Other roles that ensured his status as a screen idol followed,
including
The Man Without Desire (1923),
which he produced. He wrote and appeared in the successful 1924 play
"The Rat," which transferred quite well to film the following year
(The Rat (1925)). This also inspired two
sequels --
The Triumph of the Rat (1926)
and
The Return of the Rat (1929).
The actor's film peak occurred headlining two of
Alfred Hitchcock's early
suspense thrillers, serving as the put-upon protagonist in both the
silent classic
The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927)
and the lesser-received Downhill (1927).
Novello had a fine, well-modulated speaking voice that transferred
easily to talkies. Into the 1930s, he wrote and starred in
Symphony in Two Flats (1930)
and went on to remake
The Phantom Fiend (1932) successfully. During
this time he also wrote the dialogue for
Tarzan the Ape Man (1932), the
first of the jungle series to star
Johnny Weissmuller and
Maureen O'Sullivan. Novello's
last film was Autumn Crocus (1934),
after which he decided to devote himself full time to music and
theater.
He went on to earn rave reviews for his opulent, romantically
melodramatic stagings of "Glamorous Night" (1935), "The Dancing Years"
(1939) and "Perchance to Dream" (1945). He wrote eight musicals in all
and appeared in six of them, all of them non-singing parts.
His longtime companion of 35 years, actor
Robert Andrews, was with Novello
when Novello died suddenly on March 6, 1951 of a coronary thrombosis
only hours after performing in his own play "The King's Rhapsody."
Hugely popular in his time (though virtually unknown in America),
Novello's lasting influence on film, theater and especially music
cannot be denied.