 At about this time, Novello had an affair with the writer Siegfried Sassoon; it was short lived, but in the words of Sassoon's biographer John Stuart Roberts, Novello "was a consummate flirt who collected lovers as he gathered lilacs".In 1923, Novello made his American movie debut in D. W. Griffith's "The White Rose".The same year, he starred in "The Man Without Desire", among other British films.