Ivor Novello

This special 4th edition in hardback has been created to include My Life an autobiography created by Novello in 1933. It charts his life from childhood and his film and theatre career including all the famous actors and actresses he worked with after WW1 and through the 1920s. Presented here unabridged.

This comes after the 2016 BBC Composer of the Week series that featured Novello's music for the first time in its 70 year history when the author, David Slattery-Christy, was script consultant and special guest for the five, hour long programmes with the BBC Concert Orchestra.

This is not a sentimental journey but an honest and affectionate journey into the life, work and world of the late Ivor Novello (1893-1951). From his first success as a composer with the WW1 hit Keep The Home Fires Burning, he would go on to become a film star, playwright and stage actor, and then the creator of glamorous Ruritanian musicals that filled the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. Ruritania was the mythical land in which he set these romantic musicals, it was a land of his own invention and also one that reflected the historical and social events in the real world around him.

Interwoven through the story are accounts of the author's experiences whilst involved with Novello's works. From the tribute concerts at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, to the role he undertook on the Oscar and BAFTA winning film Gosford Park as the Ivor Novello Consultant. Along the way he met and interviewed the likes of Mary Ellis, who starred in Glamorous Night with Novello in 1935; Douglas Fairbanks Jnr, who often stayed at Novello's country home with his wife Joan Crawford; Gordon Dutson, Novello's last secretary and lover; Nicholas Hassall, whose father, Christopher Hassall, was Novello's lyricist and close friend.

Novello's sudden death in 1951, aged just 58, was front page news. His funeral route was lined by thousands of fans. His circle of friends closed ranks to protect his memory. In fact what they achieved was destructive. Within ten years of his death he was all but forgotten, as if he had never existed.