Ivor Novello

Acting

Ivor Novello

Born — Died

1893-01-15 — 1951-03-06

Place of birth

Cardiff, Wales, UK

Known for

Acting

Credits

28 titles

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…

Known for

Tarzan the Ape Man poster
6.6

James Parker and Harry Holt are on an expedition in Africa in search of the elephant burial grounds that will provide enough ivory to make them rich. Parker's beautiful daughter Jane arrives unexpectedly to join them. Jane is terrified when Tarzan and his ape friends abduct her, but when she returns to her father's expedition she has second thoughts about leaving Tarzan.

Tarzan the Ape Man

1932

The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog poster
7.2

London. A mysterious serial killer brutally murders young blond women by stalking them in the night fog. One foggy, sinister night, a young man who claims his name is Jonathan Drew arrives at the guest house run by the Bunting family and rents a room.

The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog

1927

But the Flesh Is Weak poster
6.2

A poor-but-charming father and son try to enter high society by marrying rich English widows.

But the Flesh Is Weak

1932

King's Rhapsody poster
5.3

Flynn plays the exciled Ruritanian king who leaves his mistress to return home to a political marriage. Love versus duty in this enjoyable romantic film.

King's Rhapsody

1955

Downhill poster
5.7

When school captain Roddy Berwick takes the blame for his friend’s scandal, he is expelled and disowned by his family. Cast out of his privileged world, Roddy drifts through a series of humiliations—from waiter to penniless actor to gigolo—descending ever further into ruin and self-disgust.

Downhill

1927

Symphony in Two Flats poster
7.0

A young composer goes blind, and shortly afterward enters his most recent work in a competition. He believes he's won, but doesn't know that his wife couldn't bear to tell him that he didn't. Complications ensue.

Symphony in Two Flats

1930

Film credits

1930s · 6 titles

1920s · 15 titles

The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog poster
7.2

London. A mysterious serial killer brutally murders young blond women by stalking them in the night fog. One foggy, sinister night, a young man who claims his name is Jonathan Drew arrives at the guest house run by the Bunting family and rents a room.

The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog

1927

Downhill poster
5.7

When school captain Roddy Berwick takes the blame for his friend’s scandal, he is expelled and disowned by his family. Cast out of his privileged world, Roddy drifts through a series of humiliations—from waiter to penniless actor to gigolo—descending ever further into ruin and self-disgust.

Downhill

1927

The Bohemian Girl poster
6.8

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

The Bohemian Girl

1922

Miarka, la fille à l'ourse poster
9.0

Miarka is to marry a gypsy chief - whereabouts unknown. She and her tame bear live upon the estate of an old gentleman who tolerates them because of his interest in gypsies, and more particularly because he has a gypsy document which he cannot decipher. One day, the gardener, who is in love with Miarka, robs the master and sets fire to the home, making it appear that she is the guilty one.

Miarka, la fille à l'ourse

1920

The Return of the Rat poster
6.6

The rich, amoral Zelie is married to Pierre Boucheron, "The Rat" - but her interest in another man is an open secret. Forced to defend his honour, the Rat takes refuge in his old domain of the Paris underworld. But even here he has a rival - and when murder is afoot, the sinister Morel's ambition threatens to cost the Rat dear....

The Return of the Rat

1929

The Triumph of the Rat poster
6.6

Pierre Boucheron, alias 'The Rat' and a former underworld notoriety, is now living the high life as the kept man of Zelie de Chaumet. But when she learns he is planning to marry another woman, her vengeance pursues him into the murkiest depths of Paris...

The Triumph of the Rat

1926

The Constant Nymph poster
10.0

Sanger, an eccentric expatriate composer, dies in his house in the Austrian Alps, leaving his daughters penniless. The young composer Lewis Dodd, a longstanding friend of the family, falls in love with their cousin Florence when she comes to take the girls back to England. But little Tessa Sanger is in love with Lewis herself, and when she runs away from school and comes to live with Florence and her husband, their already-shaky marriage is further undermined

The Constant Nymph

1928

The Man Without Desire poster
7.5

A grief-stricken 18th-century Venetian gentleman is thwarted in love and placed in suspended animation. When he wakes up 200 years later, he finds the experiment has more serious unexpected consequences.

The Man Without Desire

1923

No artwork available
10.0

'Girl reporter and insane fiancé join pirate's descendant in treasure hunt.' (British Film Catalogue)

A South Sea Bubble

1928

The White Rose poster
7.4

Wealthy young Southern aristocrat Joseph graduates from seminary and, before he takes charge of his assigned parish, goes out and see what 'the real world' is all about. His meetings with a young woman he believes to be more worldly than she is soon cause ruin for all involved.

The White Rose

1923

No artwork available
7.0

The daughter of an American millionaire falls in love with a Hungarian hussar officer during a visit to the Austrian Empire.

The Gallant Hussar

1928

The Rat poster
8.5

When bored courtesan Zelie de Chaumet begs her lover, the corrupt and powerful Stetz, to take her slumming, the pair encounter Pierre Boucheron, alias 'The Rat' , boy-king of the Paris underworld, and the innocent Odile. Love, life and jewels are risked and lost in this powerful romantic melodrama as the four characters' lives are changed by this chance encounter for ever.

The Rat

1925

Bonnie Prince Charlie poster
10.0

In the Jacobite Rising of 1745, the Young Pretender Bonnie Prince Charlie leads an insurrection to overthrow the Protestant House of Hanover and restore his family, the Catholic branch of the House of Stuart, to the British throne.

Bonnie Prince Charlie

1923

The Vortex poster
7.0

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

The Vortex

1928

Carnival poster
7.0

An actor playing Othello in a stage production of Shakespeare's play becomes jealous of his wife's supposed infidelity and seems bound to kill her in the scene in which she, enacting Othello's falsely accused wife Desdemona, is murdered by her jealous husband.

Carnival

1921

Behind the camera

Tarzan the Ape Man poster
6.6

James Parker and Harry Holt are on an expedition in Africa in search of the elephant burial grounds that will provide enough ivory to make them rich. Parker's beautiful daughter Jane arrives unexpectedly to join them. Jane is terrified when Tarzan and his ape friends abduct her, but when she returns to her father's expedition she has second thoughts about leaving Tarzan.

Tarzan the Ape Man

1932

But the Flesh Is Weak poster
6.2

A poor-but-charming father and son try to enter high society by marrying rich English widows.

But the Flesh Is Weak

1932

King's Rhapsody poster
5.3

Flynn plays the exciled Ruritanian king who leaves his mistress to return home to a political marriage. Love versus duty in this enjoyable romantic film.

King's Rhapsody

1955

The Man Without Desire poster
7.5

A grief-stricken 18th-century Venetian gentleman is thwarted in love and placed in suspended animation. When he wakes up 200 years later, he finds the experiment has more serious unexpected consequences.

The Man Without Desire

1923

No artwork available
NR

1957 BBC Television production of Ivor Novello’s musical featuring Vanessa Lee, reprising the role of Princess Cristiane which she took in the 1949 stage premiere at the Palace Theatre, London.

King's Rhapsody

1957

The Rat poster
8.5

When bored courtesan Zelie de Chaumet begs her lover, the corrupt and powerful Stetz, to take her slumming, the pair encounter Pierre Boucheron, alias 'The Rat' , boy-king of the Paris underworld, and the innocent Odile. Love, life and jewels are risked and lost in this powerful romantic melodrama as the four characters' lives are changed by this chance encounter for ever.

The Rat

1925