Oscar Profile #139: W. Somerset Maugham

Born January 25, 1874 in Paris, France to British parents, where his father was a lawyer who handled the affairs of the British Embassy, William Somerset Maugham grew up to become a popular playwright, short story writer and the highest paid author in the world in the 1930s.

Maugham had an idyllic childhood raised more or less as only child by his mother as his siblings were older and already in school when he was born. That childhood was cut short when his mother died in childbirth when he was eight and his father died of cancer two years later. He spent the remainder of his youth being raised by a cold English uncle who pooh-poohed his ambitions to become a writer, insisting instead that he learn a profession. He settled on medicine and graduated from St. Thomas Medical School in 1897 the year his first novel, Liza of Lamberth, which was a huge hit. He never looked back on medicine except as a literary device in many of his works.

Numerous works followed, though it wasn’t until his 1908 supernatural novel, The Magician that he had another major hit. By 1914 with ten novels and ten plays behind him, Maugham had achieved a level of fame that never left him. An ambulance driver at the start of World War I, he later became spy while traveling through Europe to promote his semi-autobiographical 1915 novel, Of Human Bondage.

Although Maugham’s first sexual encounters were with men, he had numerous affairs with women as well as men. One of his female relationships resulted in the birth of a daughter, Mary Elizabeth Wellcome, called Liza, in 1915. At the time of his liaison with Syrie Wellcome, he had begun his relationship with Gerald Haxton, ostensibly his secretary, who would be his companion until Haxton’s death from alcoholism in New York in 1944. Maugham and Syrie Wellcome were married in 1917 and divorced in 1928. Their daughter Liza and her four children would often visit Maugham in his later years. British autistic savant and musical prodigy Derek Paravicini is his great-grandson.

Among Maugham’s most significant works after Of Human Bondage were 1916’s The Moon and Sixpence based on the life of Paul Gauguin, the 1922 play Rain based on his short story, Sadie Thompson; the 1927 play The Letter and the 1944 novel The Razor’s Edge.
Having spent the years between the wars at his villa in France, Maugham returned there after the end of the second World War. There he reconnected with Alan Searle, a young man he had first met in 1928, who became his new companion. As Maugham grew old, he depended more and more on Searle, who by 1962 had convinced Maugham his daughter and her children were after his money and convinced the now 88 year-old author to disown his daughter and adopt the forty-something Searle as his son and heir. When Maugham died in 1965 at the age of 91, his entire estate was left to Searle. The family sued and the French courts reinstated Maugham’s previous will which did not affect Searle’s rights to items not outlined in the previous will. These included income from Maugham’s copyrights which expired in 1995, thirty years after his death, after which they reverted to the British Royal Literary Fund.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

SADIE THOMPSON (1928), directed by Raoul Walsh

Based on Maugham’s short story, and the 1922 play Rain that was made from it, this version of the story of the carefree prostitute and the hypocritical minister she clashes with in Pago-Pago was a box office success which received two nominations at the first Academy Awards. One was for cinematography; the other was for Gloria Swanson’s luminous performance. Ironically, the 1932 version of Rain with Joan Crawford, which was a big flop in its initial release, is the version that has become better known. The 1953 version with Rita Hayworth and José Ferrer, called Miss Sadie Thompson, can’t hold a candle to either the Swanson/Lionel Barrymore or Crawford/Walter Huston versions.

THE LETTER (1929), directed by Jean de Limur

Maugham wrote the 1927 London play for Gladys Cooper, then the reigning queen of the London stage, and at his request Broadway legend Katharine Cornell led the cast on the Great White Way later that year, but the plum starring role in the first film version went to Jeanne Eagels who had become a star in the 1922 Broadway version of Rain. Eagels made only one other sound film, 1929’s Jealousy, but that film is considered lost. Consequently we have only The Letter to evaluate Eagels’ talents. Her Best Actress nomination at the second Academy Awards for this film came after her death, making her Oscar’s first posthumously nominated performer. The film is in some ways superior to the more famous 1940 version for which Bette Davis also received an Oscar nomination.

OF HUMAN BONDAGE (1934), directed by John Cromwell

Bette Davis became an overnight sensation as Mildred Rogers, the nasty manipulative cockney waitress in the first film version of Maugham’s semi-autobiographical novel. Philip Carey, the story’s protagonist played by Leslie Howard, suffered from the embarrassing physical deformity of a club foot, a substitute for Maugham’s lifelong stutter. Maugham, who could speak without a stutter when reciting a prepared speech, was often unable to get the words out when speaking extemporaneously.

This version of Maugham’s celebrated novel, for decades required high school reading, was by far the best of three filmed versions. It was remade in 1946 with Eleanor Parker and Paul Henreid and in 1964 with Kim Novak and Laurence Harvey.

THE RAZOR’S EDGE (1946), directed by Edmund Goulding

Maugham’s best late career novel was about one man’s search for enlightenment and the woman who abandoned him and now wants him back. Tyrone Power received some of the best notices of his career in the lead and Gene Tierney at the height of her celebrated beauty was his leading lady, but the film is stolen by supporting players Clifton Webb and Anne Baxter, the latter winning an Oscar for playing a woman who turns to drink after the deaths of her husband and child.

A 1984 remake with Bill Murray was not successful.

THE PAINTED VEIL (2006), directed by John Curran

Maugham’s novel of a faithless wife who comes to love her husband too late was previously filmed in 1934 with Greta Garbo, Herbert Marshall and George Brent with a Hollywood happy ending that was at variance with the source material. This beautifully filmed version with Naomi Watts, Edward Norton and Live Schreiber is much more satisfying.

It was the third film to be made from a Maugham novel in the past decade following 2001’s Up at the Villa with Kristin Scott Thomas, Sean Penn and Anne Bancroft and 2004’s Being Julia with Annette Bening and Jeremy Irons based on Theatre. They were the last of 128 theatrical and TV films made from Maugham’s works to date.