Cardiff’s Famous: Ivor Novello

One of Cardiff’s most famous sons, Ivor Novello was born David Ivor Davies on January 15 1893. During the next 60 years, he found fame and fortune as a leading composer and actor.

His father, David Davies, collected rent for the council while his musical talent came from his mother Clara, a famous singer and choir leader who founded the Royal Welsh Ladies Choir.

Novello made his name at 21 when he wrote the hit Keep the Home Fires Burning during the First World War.

He continued to compose, for musical comedy and revue, featured in two of Alfred Hitchcock’s silent films, The Lodger and Downhill in 1927. His adopted sister Marie was starting to find fame as a pianist in 1928 but her life was cut short that year by throat cancer, aged just 30.

In the following decade, Novello starred in his own musicals Glamorous Night and The Dancing Years.

During the Second World War, in 1944, he was sentenced to four weeks in prison for misusing petrol coupons along with a female fan.

Novello suffered a coronary thrombosis on March 6 1951, aged 58. The following day, The Times read:

The death of Ivor Novello will be widely felt, not only among the thousands of theatregoers for whom his musical plays, in particular, have long meant a welcome holiday from the humdrum , but also the many members of the theatrical profession to whom his kindnesses were endless. Perhaps few other theatrical figures off the age are so likely to leave behind a legend.

That legend is remembered through the Ivor Novello Awards for songwriting, which have been held every year since 1955. His statue stands in Cardiff Bay, between the Millennium Centre and the Pierhead Building.