Ivor Novello
Born	David Ivor Davies (1893-01-15)15 January 1893 Cardiff, Wales
Died	6 March 1951(1951-03-06) (aged 58) London, England
Occupation	Actor, singer, composer
Years active	1914–1951
Partner	Bobbie Andrews (1916–51)

David Ivor Davies (15 January 1893 – 6 March 1951), better known as Ivor Novello, was a Welsh composer, singer and actor who became one of the most popular British entertainers of the first half of the 20th century. Born into a musical family, his first successes were as a songwriter. His first big hit was "Keep the Home Fires Burning", which was enormously popular during the First World War. After the war, Novello contributed numbers to several successful musical comedies and was eventually commissioned to write the scores of complete shows. In the 1920s, he turned to acting, first in films and then on stage, with considerable success in both.

Biography[link]

Early years[link]

Novello's birthplace, Cardiff

Novello was born in Cardiff, Wales, to David Davies (c. 1852 — 1931), a rent collector for the city council,^[1] and his wife, Clara Novello Davies, an internationally-known singing teacher and choral conductor.^[2] As a boy, Novello was a successful singer in the Welsh Eisteddfod.^[3] His mother set up as 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.^[1] Another of his mother's associates was Clara Butt, who taught him to sing "Abide with Me" when he was a boy of six.^[4]

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.^[1] Although Brewer had told him he would not have a career in music,^[2] Novello from his early youth showed a facility for writing songs, and when he was only 15, one of his songs was published.^[5] After leaving school, he gave piano lessons in Cardiff, and then moved to London in 1913. He took a flat above the Strand Theatre, which became his London home for the rest of his life.^[1]

In London he found a mentor in Sir Edward Marsh, a well-known patron of the arts. Marsh encouraged him to compose and introduced him to people who could help his career.^[1] He adopted part of his mother's maiden name, "Novello" as his professional surname, although he did not change it legally until 1927.^[6]

	Keep the Home Fires Burning noicon Performed by Frederick Wheeler for Edison Records in late 1915.
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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 World War I. 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.^[7] In other respects, the war had less impact on Novello than on many young men of his age. He avoided active service until June 1916, when he reported to a Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) training depot as a probationary flight sub-lieutenant. After twice crashing an aeroplane, and with the influence of Marsh, he was moved to the Air Ministry office in central London performing clerical duties for the duration of the war.^[8]

Composer and actor[link]

Novello continued to write songs while serving in the RNAS. He had his first stage success with Theodore & Co in 1916, a production by George Grossmith, Jr. and Edward Laurillard with a score composed by Novello and the young Jerome Kern.^[9] In the same year, Novello contributed to André Charlot's revue See-Saw.^[1] In 1917 he wrote for another Grossmith and Laurillard production, the operette Arlette, for which he contributed additional numbers to an existing French score by Jane Vieu and Guy le Feuvre.^[10] In the same year, Marsh introduced him to the actor Bobbie Andrews, who became Novello's life partner.^[1] Andrews introduced Novello to the young Noël Coward. Coward, six years Novello's junior, was deeply envious of Novello's effortless glamour. He wrote, "I just felt suddenly conscious of the long way I had to go before I could break into the magic atmosphere in which he moved and breathed with such nonchalance".^[11]

In 1918 and after the war, Novello continued to write successfully for musical comedy and revue. The former included Who's Hooper? (1919), an adaptation of a Pinero play, with a book by Fred Thompson, lyrics by Clifford Grey, and music by Howard Talbot and Novello,^[12] and The Golden Moth by Thompson and P.G. Wodehouse (1921), for which Novello provided the entire score.^[13] For Charlot, he contributed numbers to the revues Tabs (1918), A to Z (1921) and Puppets (1924). For the second of these, his songs included one of his few well-known comedy numbers, "And her mother came too", with lyrics by Dion Titheradge, written for Jack Buchanan.^[1]