Just say Novello: Ivor Novello the matinee idol Jeremy Northam plays in Gosford Park, was a real star--and gay to boot. (The Hollywood Issue).

"Was he the real?" That's the question after seeing Robert Altman's Best Picture-nominated Gosford Park. "Ivor Novello--he was just a fictional character, wasn't he?"

So delicious is Jeremy Northam's portrayal of the matinee idol that it's easy to believe him to be just another one of Altman's brilliant creations. But Ivor Novello was in fact a real-life swell, the kind Cole Porter loved to write about: the smoking jacket--clad, martini-drinking bachelor-about-town. And like so many of them, Novello was as gay as a jaybird, as Anita Loos used to say.

Born in 1893 as David Ivor Davies in Cardiff, Wales, he was trained to be a singer by his mother, Madame Clara. The influence of the eccentric Clara was lasting. When the young Ivor--who won a scholarship to Oxford--began to pursue fame on the London stage, it was with the middle name of his beloved "Mam": Novello.

He did it all, jumping from the stage to the silent screen (D.W. Griffith's The White Rose and the early Hitchcock thriller The Lodger). He wrote plays (The Rat) and movies (Tarzan the Ape Man--"Me Tarzan, you Jane" originated with Novello). He gave Vivien Leigh her stage name, wrote the patriotic song "Keep the Home Fires Burning," and spent the '30s and '40s composing lush, romantic musicals--Glamorous Night (1935), Perchance to Dream (1945)--becoming the Andrew Lloyd Webber of his time.

As versatile and prolific as his friend and rival Noel Coward, Novello was never as affected. Critics fell all over themselves trying to describe his romantic appeal, which proved to be as powerful to many male moviegoers as to the legions of Novello's swooning female fans. Coward himself would admit Novello could be "violently glamorous" but also "a little vulgar" too. Therein perhaps lay the secret of his appeal.

Novello and his partner, the actor Robert Andrews, were devoted, rarely seen without the other. Coward found "Ivor and Bobby" often "beguiling," but they could also ramble on "ad nauseam" about a topic--especially the month Novello spent in prison in 1944 for misusing wartime petrol coupons. They forever lamented the "injustice" of it all.

When Ivor Novello died in 1951 of a coronary thrombosis, Coward wrote in his diary: "Another landmark swept away. Poor, poor Bobby--he will be utterly devastated." Though never as acclaimed as Coward, Novello nonetheless still has his devotees: London's Ivor Novello Appreciation Bureau keeps "the great man's memory" alive and fosters "the appreciation of his prodigious legacy." There are also the Ivor Novello Awards, given since 1956 to British song-writers and music publishers. Past recipients of "Ivors" include Peter Gabriel, Elton John, and Paul McCartney.

In an era before there existed such a social construct as "openly gay," Ivor Novello nevertheless lived a life of undisguised authenticity. How perfect then that his last play, staged in 1951, would be called Gay's the Word.

Mann is the author of Behind the Screen: How Gays and Lesbians Shaped Hollywood 1910-1969 (Viking).