Ivor Novello
Ivor Novello was born in Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom on January 15th, 1893 and is the Stage Actor. At the age of 58, Ivor Novello biography, profession, age, height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, measurements, education, career, dating/affair, family, news updates, and networth are available.
At 58 years old, Ivor Novello has this physical status:
Ivor Novello (15 January 1893 – 6 March 1951), born David Ivor Davies, was a Welsh composer and actor who became one of the most popular British entertainers of the first half of the 20th century. He was born into a musical family, and his first successes were as a songwriter.
His first big hit was "Keep the Home Fires Burning" (1914), which was enormously popular during the First World War.
His 1917 show, Theodore & Co, was a wartime hit.
After the war, Novello contributed numbers to several successful musical comedies and was eventually commissioned to write the scores of complete shows.
He wrote his musicals in the style of operetta and often composed his music to the libretti of Christopher Hassall. In the 1920s, he turned to acting, first in British films and then on stage, with considerable success in both.
He starred in two silent films directed by Alfred Hitchcock, The Lodger and Downhill (both 1927).
On stage, he played the title character in the first London production of Liliom (1926).
Novello briefly went to Hollywood, but he soon returned to Britain, where he had more successes, especially on stage, appearing in his own lavish West End productions of musicals.
The best known of these were Glamorous Night (1935) and The Dancing Years (1939).
From the 1930s, he often performed with Zena Dare, writing parts for her in his works.
He continued to write for film, but he had his biggest late successes with stage musicals: Perchance to Dream (1945), King's Rhapsody (1949) and Gay's the Word (1951).
The Ivor Novello Awards were named after him in 1955.
Early years
Novello was born David Ivor Davies in Cardiff, Wales, to David Davies (c. 1852–1931), a rent collector for the city council, and his wife, Clara Novello Davies, an internationally known singing teacher and choral conductor. As a boy, Novello was a successful singer in the Welsh Eisteddfod. His mother set up as a voice teacher in London, where he met leading performers, including members of George Edwardes's Gaiety Theatre company, classical musicians such as Landon Ronald, and singers such as Adelina Patti. Another of his mother's associates was Clara Butt, who taught him to sing "Abide with Me" when he was a boy of six.
Novello was educated privately in Cardiff and then in Gloucester, where he studied harmony and counterpoint with Herbert Brewer, the cathedral organist. From there he won a scholarship to Magdalen College School in Oxford, where he was a solo treble in the college choir. He later said that this prolonged youthful exposure to early sacred choral music had turned his tastes, in reaction, to lush romantic music. Although Brewer had told him he would not have a career in music, Novello from his early youth showed a facility for writing songs, and when he was only 15, one of his songs was published. After leaving school, he gave piano lessons in Cardiff, and then moved to London in 1913 with his mother. They took a flat above the Strand Theatre, which became his London home for the rest of his life.
In London he found a mentor in Sir Edward Marsh, a well-known patron of the arts and Winston Churchill's secretary. Marsh encouraged him to compose and introduced him to people who could help his career. He adopted his mother's middle name, "Novello", as his professional surname, although he did not change it legally until 1927.
In 1914, at the start of the First World War, Novello wrote "Keep the Home Fires Burning", a song that expressed the feelings of innumerable families sundered by the war. Novello composed the music for the song to a lyric by the American Lena Guilbert Ford, and it became a huge popular success, bringing Novello money and fame at the age of 21. In other respects, the war had less impact on Novello than on many young men of his age. He avoided enlistment until June 1916, when he reported to a Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) training depot as a probationary flight sub-lieutenant. After Novello twice crashed aeroplanes, Marsh arranged his move to the Admiralty office in central London for the rest of the war.
