David Ivor Davies was the son of singer and teacher, Dame Clara Novello Davies, and David Davies, a tax collector.
At an early age, his talent for singing won him a scholarship to study at Magdalen Choir School in Oxford.
It was there that he began to write songs, using the name 'Ivor Novello', which took his Mother's middle name as his own surname.
Novello left school and moved to London with his parents in 1910, and within five years had composed the song which launched his career. 'Keep the Home Fires Burning' could have been the next National Anthem due to it's popularity during World War I. After the war, he appeared on stage in the West End, in musical shows of his own devising, the best known being The Dancing Years (1939).
Novello's first film role was in 1919, the silent 'The Call of the Blood'. He also starred in two films directed by Alfred Hitchcock, The Lodger and Downhill (both made in 1927), and later took on bigger roles in Hollywood movies. But the stage continued to call his name and was always the source of his major successes.
Novello's first film role was in 1919, the silent 'The Call of the Blood'. He also starred in two films directed by Alfred Hitchcock, The Lodger and Downhill (both made in 1927), and later took on bigger roles in Hollywood movies. But the stage continued to call his name and was always the source of his major successes.
He also came out as being homosexual in his early twenties. For 35 years, he was the lover of the British actor Bobbie Andrews, but Novello was also well known for numerous glamorous gay affairs!
The diverse success continued for some years, until Novello's life took a quite different turn during World War II. In 1944, he was sent to Wormwood Scrubs prison for two months for misuse of petrol coupons - a serious offence in wartime Britain. Fortunately for Novello, he served only half the sentence. Nevertheless, this turn of events led to the downfall from his luxurious lifestyle.
It completely broke his spirit, and he was never the same man after his release. However, he continued to appear on stage until his sudden death from a coronary thrombosis just a few hours after performing the lead in his own production, King's Rhapsody. Novello was only 58 at the time of death. 7,000 people attended his funeral (women outnumbered men 50 to one).
The Ivor Novello Award, a prize awarded for songwriting, is awarded each year by the record industry to song writers and arrangers rather than the performing artistes. In the film Gosford Park (2001), Novello was portrayed by Jeremy Northam, and several of Novello's songs were used for the film's soundtrack.
In 2005 The Strand Theatre in London, above which Novello lived for many years, was renamed the Novello Theatre.
