Welsh actor-manager, composer, and playwright, best known for his lush, sentimental, romantic musicals.

Novello, the son of the celebrated Welsh singing teacher, Dame Clara Novello Davies, was educated at Magdalen College, Oxford, and served with the Royal Naval Air Service during World War I. He became famous with a phenomenally successful patriotic wartime song, “Keep the Home Fires Burning” (1915). After he was demobilized in 1919, he accepted a motion-picture role in The Call of the Blood, and he acted in several other motion pictures throughout his career. His real love, however, was the theatre.

He first appeared on stage in 1921, and he presented his first play, The Rat (written with Constance Collier), in 1924. Though he was not an extraordinary actor, his many talents and winning personality made him a great popular success. Thereafter he wrote, produced, and acted in such successful comedies as The Truth Game (performed 1928), A Symphony in Two Flats (performed 1929), Party (performed 1932), and Fresh Fields (performed 1934). He was best known, however, for his Ruritanian musicals, especially Glamorous Night (performed 1935), Careless Rapture (performed 1936), The Dancing Years (performed 1939), Perchance to Dream (performed 1945), and King's Rhapsody (performed 1949)—all with lyrics by Christopher Hassall.