Biography for
W. Somerset Maugham More at IMDbPro »

Date of Birth

25 January 1874, Paris, France

Date of Death

15 December 1965, Nice, Alpes-Maritimes, France (pneumonia)

Birth Name

William Somerset Maugham

Nickname

Willie

Mini Biography

Popular British novelist, playwright, short-story writer and the highest-paid author in the world in the 1930s, Somerset Maugham graduated in 1897 from St. Thomas' Medical School and qualified as a doctor, but abandoned medicine after the success of his first novels and plays. During World War I he worked as a secret agent and in 1928 settled in Cap Ferrat in France, from where he made journeys all over the world. Maugham's spy novel "Ashenden; or The British Agent" (1928) is partly based on his own experiences in the secret service. In making the transition from secret agent to writer, Maugham carried on in the tradition of such classic writers as Christopher Marlowe, Ben Johnson and Daniel Defoe to such contemporary writers as Graham Greene, John le Carré, John Dickson Carr, Alec Waugh and Ted Allbeury. Maugham's skill in handling plot is compared by critics to that of Guy de Maupassant. In many of Maugham's novels the surroundings are international and the stories are told in a clear, economical style with a cynical or resigned undertone. Although Maugham was successful as an author he was never knighted and his relationship with Gerald Haxton, his secretary, has been subject to speculation.

IMDb Mini Biography By: hasbiniz

Spouse

Maud Gwendolen Syrie Barnardo

(1917 - 1928) (divorced) 1 child

Trivia

Uncle of writer Robin Maugham.

Alfred Hitchcock was a great admirer of Maugham's work. In his famous interview with François Truffaut, Hitchcock claimed that Maugham was one of the few fiction writers he enjoyed reading for leisure.

Biography/bibliography in: Contemporary Authors, New Revision Series, volume 127, pages 280-288. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale, 2004.

Biography in: Current Biography Yearbook 1963, Pages 263-265. New York: The H.W. Wilson Company, 1964.

Born in the same year as Winston Churchill and died in the same year as Winston Churchill.

Personal Quotes

"In Hollywood, the women are all peaches. It makes one long for an apple occasionally."

"It is dangerous to let the public behind the scenes. They are easily disillusioned and then they are angry with you, for it was the illusion they loved."

"At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely."

"A woman will always sacrifice herself if you give her the opportunity. It is her favorite form of self-indulgence."

"It is a funny thing about life.If you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it."

"Life is too short to do anything for oneself that one can pay others to do for one."

"Sentimentality is the only sentiment that rubs you the wrong way."

"If 50 million people say a foolish thing, it's still a foolish thing."

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