Ivor Novello

Born: 1893-01-15

Ivor Novello (born David Ivor Davies; 15 January 1893 – 6 March 1951) was a Welsh composer and actor who became one of the most popular British entertainers of the first half of the 20th century, on both screen and stage. He was born into a musical Cardiff family and his mother, Clara Novello Davies, was an internationally known singing teacher and choral conductor. As a child, Novello was a successful singer in various eisteddfodau throughout the country. He was educated privately in Cardiff and then in Gloucester and later won a scholarship to Magdalen College School in Oxford. The family moved to London in 1913 and here Novello's career flourished. In 1914, at the start of World War II, he wrote the words to his most popular song, "Keep the Home Fires Burning". Novello lived in a flat above the Strand Theatre, where he remained until his death in 1951. Since 1955 the internationally prestigious The Ivor Novello Awards ("The Ivors") for songwriting and composing are annually awarded by the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors (BASCA).


Placeholder

The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog

as The Lodger Jonathan Drew
Released: 1927-02-14

London. A mysterious serial killer brutally murders young blond women by stalking them in the...

Movie page

Downhill

as Roddy Berwick
Released: 1927-10-24

Roddy, first son of the rich Berwick family, is expelled from school when he takes the blame for...

Movie page

The Lodger

as Michel Angeloff
Released: 1932-09-08

An elderly couple's lodger, a British musician (Ivor Novello), becomes the suspect in a series...

Movie page

The White Rose

as Joseph
Released: 1923-05-21

A wealthy young Southern aristocrat, Joseph, graduates from a seminary and, before he takes...

Movie page

Bonnie Prince Charlie

as Prince Charles Stuart
Released: 1923-11-01

In the Jacobite Rising of 1745, the Young Pretender Bonnie Prince Charlie leads an insurrection...

Movie page

Symphony in Two Flats

as David Kennard
Released: 1930-07-16

A young composer goes blind, and shortly afterward enters his most recent work in a competition....

Movie page

The Triumph of the Rat

as Pierre Boucheron, 'the Rat'
Released: 1926-03-21

Pierre Boucheron, alias 'The Rat' and a former underworld notoriety, is now living the high life...

Movie page

The Vortex

as Nicky Lancaster
Released: 1928-03-25

A young man is shocked to discover that his fiancé is the mistress of his mother's lover.

Movie page

Autumn Crocus

as Andreas Steiner
Released: 1934-02-01

A teacher falls in love with the married owner of the guest house in which she is staying during...

Movie page

I Lived with You

as Prince Felix Lenieff
Released: 1933-06-13

In London a young lady meets a homeless and apparently penniless Russian prince. She introduces...

Movie page

The Man Without Desire

as Count Vittorio Dandolo
Released: 1923-12-01

A grief-stricken 18th-century Venetian gentleman is thwarted in love and placed in suspended...

Movie page

The Bohemian Girl

as Thaddeus
Released: 1922-07-27

A Polish officer posing as a gypsy loves a gypsy girl who is really the count's daughter.

Movie page

The Return of the Rat

as Pierre Boucheron
Released: 1929-05-30

The rich, amoral Zelie is married to Pierre Boucheron, "The Rat" - but her interest in another...

Movie page

Once a Lady

as Bennett Cloud
Released: 1931-11-07

A young Russian woman marries a wealthy Englishman, and has a daughter with him. After she has...

Movie page

Sleeping Car

as Gaston
Released: 1933-06-06

A French sleeping-car attending with an eye for the ladies hooks up with a wealthy widow and...

Movie page

Carnival

as Count Andrea Scipione
Released: 1921-06-26

An actor playing Othello in a stage production of Shakespeare's play becomes jealous of his...

Movie page

The Constant Nymph

as Lewis Dodd
Released: 1928-02-20

Sanger, an eccentric expatriate composer, dies in his house in the Austrian Alps, leaving his...

Movie page

The Rat

as Pierre Boucheron
Released: 1925-09-07

When bored courtesan Zelie de Chaumet begs her lover, the corrupt and powerful Stetz, to take...

Movie page

The Call of the Blood

as Maurice Delarey
Released: 1919-12-20

An Englishman commits adultery with a Sicilian woman.

Movie page

Alfred Hitchcock Presents

as The Lodger (archive footage) (uncredited)
First aired: 1955-10-02

A television anthology series hosted by Alfred Hitchcock featuring dramas, thrillers, and mysteries.

TV Show page