Robert Andrews

Robert Tobias Andrews (born Reginald Frank Andrews; 20 February 1895 – 17 January 1976) was a British stage and film actor. He is perhaps best known as the long-term companion of Ivor Novello. Early life Andrews was born in Camden Town, the son of Walter Andrews (1861–1935), a horse bus inspector, and his wife Ada Harriet, née Judd (1864–1946). He was the younger brother of actress Maidie Andrews. Career Andrews began his stage acting career at age eleven. He made his first stage appearance in the play Shore Acres in 1906. His child actor contemporaries included Noël Coward and Philip Tonge. Coward referred to Andrews as Tonge's "only serious rival" among the "boy actors" of the London theatre. In 1907, at the age of twelve, Andrews appeared in Horace Annesley's comedy Her Son as "Min, the eight-year-old child of Crystal and Gasgoyne," a role for which he received significant acclaim. Andrews' "finished and sympathetic performance" was described as "the success of [Her Son's] première," "a genuine and surprising triumph" that caused "quite a sensation." In 1911, he briefly worked in Chicago, acting in the play The Backsliders, before returning to London theatre.