The Daily Agenda for Tuesday, January 15

Jim Burroway

January 15th, 2013

TODAY’S BIRTHDAY:
Ivor Novello: 1893. The Welsh screen idol did it all: actor on stage and silent screen, playwright and composer. When the Great War broke out, he wrote the music for the song “Keep the Home Fires Burning” to lyrics written by American Lena Guilbert-Ford. That hit was Novello’s debut in the the entertainment business. In 1916, he was drafted into the Royal Naval Air Service and trained as a pilot, but after crashing twice, he was transferred to central London to work as a clerk. That allowed him to work as a composer for theater during his off hours. That’s when he met actor Bobbie Andrews, who would become Novello’s life partner. He also met Noel Coward, who envied “the magic atmosphere in which (Novello) moved and breathed with such nonchalance”

After the war, Novellow continued to find success in composing for musical comedy. He also began making a career of acting, first on the stage and then in film. He appeared in D.W. Griffith’s The White Rose (1923) and in two early Alfred Hitchcock silent thriller The Lodger (1926) and Downhill (1927). A lucrative contract from a British film company allowed him to buy a country house west of London which he renamed Redroofs, and entertained with little regard for convention. Those parties led to the rise of “the Ivor/Noel naughty set,” named for Novello, Noel Coward, and, shall we say, those sorts of people. During the late 1920s Novello was perhaps the most popular star in British films. In 1930, he took his plays Symphony in Two Flats and The Truth Game to Broadway, where he was offered a contract with MGM. But beyond writing the dialogue for Tarzan the Ape Man (including the famous line, “Me Tarzan, you Jane”), his Hollywood career failed to pan out.

Hollywood’s loss was London’s gain. On his return, he added playwriting to his repertoire of talents, which, along with his compositions, made him a powerhouse of British theater. A string of hits followed through the 1930s and 40s. He died suddenly in 1951, while still at the top of his game, from a coronary thrombosis and with Andrews at his side. Coward wrote in his diary, “Another landmark swept away. Poor, poor Bobbie… he will be utterly devastated.” Thousands of fans lined the streets to give their final goodbyes and his funeral was broadcast live on BBC. Four years later, the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors (BASCA) established the Ivor Novello Awards for songwriting and composing. The Ivors, as the awards are called, remain the only award that is judged by the writing community, and not by publishers and recording companies.

If you know of something that belongs on the agenda, please send it here. Don’t forget to include the basics: who, what, when, where, and URL (if available).

And feel free to consider this your open thread for the day. What’s happening in your world?

Tom

January 15th, 2013

Over here in England, a fairly prominent evangelical pastor has publicly come out in favour of gay marriage, and homosexuality: Steve Chalke. He has blessed a couple who had got a civil partnership, which has ruffled a few feathers in the mostly anti-gay evangelical circles. It’s unusual to get such high profile support from an area that is traditionally more conservative, so it’ll be interesting to see where this leads.

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