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About Medford mail tribune. (Medford, Or.) 1909-1989 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 24, 1963)
MEDFOHD MAIL TRIBUNE. MEDFOHD. OREGON THURSDAY, JANUARY 24. 1963 A 3 Maugham Changes Role in Old Age; Discredits Wife, Daughter (Editor's Note: On Jan. 25 on of the world's best known and most successful popular writers. Somerset Maugham, will be 89 years old. His works are legion, - many have become legend . . . "Of Human Bondage", "The Painted Veil", "The Moon and Sixpence", "The Razor's Edge", "The Con stant Wife", "Cakes and Ale", to list just a few. As Maugham approaches his 90th year, here is a closeup of him by a reporter who observed his activities in Europe for many years. h SOMERSET MAUGHAM- Photo of British author taken in 1961. (UPI) ' By ROBERT MUSEL United Press International All the world's a stage and tor nearly 70 years Somerset Maugham observed it from a seat on the aisle extracting from its players what he needed of triumph and tra gedy and smiles and sorrows to compose his novels and short stories. Then, about a year ago, he laid down his pen and with it the role of observer that made him one of the most famous storytellers in the world. Some of his friends are saddened that he ever left the detachment of his aisle seat to climb on the stage. For on the eve of his 90th year he has become personally in volved In the kind of situa tion that in earlier days might have struck him only as the plot for a work of fiction. If there is a budding Maugham watching the old man as once he shrewdly observed others for a novel still unborn, there is no lack of material. In the past year or so the great writer has been party to a flourish of sensations: He denied that he is the father of his daughter, Lady Elizabeth Hope, 47, and at tempted to disinherit her. He sued her for the return Milk Commission Proposal Dropped ' Tillamook - IUP1I - The com mittee charged with drafting a new Oregon milk price sta bilization bill has decided to drop plans for a milk com mission and advisory board. That means the milk mar keting program will continue to be based in the State De partment of Agriculture, ac cording to George Milne, Til lamook dairyman and chair man of the committee. The proposed bill will be submitted to the legislature by the dairy industry. Milne said the commission and - advisory board were dropped to remove any pos sible objections that the pro gram would be controlled by producers. . The bill will provide for market pools in several areas In the state, governed by vol untary contraclural agree ments, Milne said. If the pro ducers reject the pool pro vision, the Slate Department of Agriculture would have authority to draw up a mar ketinc proaram. Milne said producers favor the voluntary plan because it could be extended to take in Southwest Washington dairy men. The agriculture depart ment would have no authority in that region. Greek Prayerbook Given University Houston - IOT - A hand written prayerbook translated from Greek by a powerful political figure in Colonial Virginia was given to the Texas collection of tnc uni versity of Texas after it turned up in a Houston home. The book was translatsd from Greek by Philip Lud well II, who once persuaded the colonial governor of Vir ginia to appoint George Wash ington as commander of the militia. The book. "The Divine and Holy Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom," was given to the University by J. H. Bar ziza Sr. The book attracted special notice when a Uni versity official Interviewed Barziza and looked through his family papers. of various gifts totalling more than $1,000,000. He adopted his secretary, Alan Searle, 58, as his son and heir. He permitted publication of part of an autobiography originally intended to be pub lished only after his death in which he frankly dissected the character of his late wife, Syrie. Trustees for Lady Eliza beth daughter of Syrie filed suit blocking the trans fer to New York of 229.581 pounds sterling ($642,826) which Maugham obtained by the auction last April of nine works from his celebrated collection of modern art. loaay, as every aay, niau gham will wander after breakfast in the beautiful gardens of his Moorish-style villa, "La Mauresque" at Cap Ferrat near Monte Carlo, lis tening to the song of hun dreds of exotic cage birds, tending the prize roses which are his'special pride. Is Broken Man Searle, who looks far younger than his years, met Maugham in 1929 when he was asked to fill in at a din ner party for someone who had cancalled out at the last moment. He was seated, by chance next to the guest of honor who was Maugham. "Soon after that evening," Searle said, "we started out on a journey together and we have been on that journey ever since." Respect for Poor They were drawn together, he said, by their mutual re spect for the poor. Searle had worked with the Salvation Army and in prisons as a visi tor. Before he took up writing as a career Maughan was an obstretrician and delivered more than 60 babies, many of them free cases. Despite the difference in age they were perfect companions as 1 noted myself when I last visited Maugham at "La Mau resque." I arrived just after the 9 a.m. ritual of the tour of the gardens. Maugham was relax ing in the large, elegant draw ing room of the three-story mansion. Searle was still in the gardens among the combed cypresses, the avoca dos imported from California and a botanical freak, a tree that produces both oranges and lemons. Searle ran the house and made certain of the old man's comfort so that Maugham would not have anything on his mind but his writing if he should want to do any in his work room on an upper story. Maugham's last writing inci dentally was painful. He had to wear a surgical glove be cause of persistent writer's cramp. Prefers Searle They spent as much time as possible together all meals, walks in the garden, conver sation after dinner and listen ing to records before going to sleep. But despite their long friendship it was a distinct surprise when it was revealed after Christmas that Mau-, gham had adopted Searle as i his son in the court at Nice ! last April. This disclosure I was a by-product of the suit Maugham brought against Lady Elizabeth asking for the return of all gifts made to her. Maugham, in his declara tion to the court, said of Lady Elizabeth, who is the wife of a former minister of works in the conservative government: "I always considered her as my daughter but legally she is the daughter of Henry Wellcome. She was born in 1915. Wellcome never denied paternity." Denies Daughter Ho contended that Lady Elizabeth was conceived be fore Syrie divorced Wellcome to marry him, and that he had never legally recognized her as his daughter. "I would have continued to regard her as my daughter," he said, "but I want to re mind her that she is not my legitimate child and I can re voke all the gifts I gave her." Maugham's lawyer. Jean Paul Shampsaur, filed suit under an article of the French code which permits gifts to be taken back if the benefi ciary is ungrateful. In this case the ingratitude, in Maugham's view, is Lady Elizabeth's suit blocking the transfer of his art sale re venues to New York on the ground she is part owner of the impressionist masters. At her home near London, Lady Elizabeth and her hus band. Lord John, said they were taken completely by surprise by the adoption of Searle and the attempt to disown her. "As far as I am concerned I am still his daughter," she said. Maugham once claimed: Doubts Her Love "My daughter never cared a rap about me." But Lady Elizabeth said: "It is quite absurd to say that. I am very fond of him." Lord John added: "My wife and her father i used to be on very affection ate terms. But recent news paper articles by Mr. Mau gham about my wife's moth er, Syrie, caused my wife great distress. Since then my wife has not written to her father. She has kept a digni fied and distressed silence." He said he did not think the lawsuit over the paintings entirely explained "this sud den break between my wife and her father." The autobiographical ex tracts on Syrie appeared in "Show" magazine in the United States which later re ceived a letter of bitter pro test from Oliver Messel, the distinguished stage designer and uncle of Lord Snowdon. Condemns Wife "It seems impossible to understand," Messel wrote "what Somerset Maugham hopes to achieve by writing in such a tasteless way about his dead wife. "Far from being, as Mau gham smugly attempts to por tray her, a pleasure-seeking wanton without resources Syrie was one of the most re sourceful, intuitively brilliant women that I have been for tunate enough to meet the only mistake Syrie seems to have made was to have loved a man incapable of ap preciating her." "Cassandra", the widely quoted columnist of the Lon don Daily Mirror, said he did not know the rights or wrongs of Maugham's court case against Lady Elizabeth. "But it seems a sad and surly course for a famous man to embark upon at the age of eighty-eight. This ac tion against his daughter fol lows a recent bitter and wounding attack that Mau gham made on his wife, Syrie Maugham, and his subsequent curious action in adopting a man aged fifty. Seeks Property "if this be the wisdom of age, give me the folly of youth." If Maugham recovers any property from Lady Elizabeth and Searle says the Nice suite is mainly to get back ownership of "La Mau resque" it will eventually go into a charity he set up in his will to help writers who are in trouble or sick or old. - Searle estimates his own inheritance from the estate at 500,000 sterling ($1,400. 000) but it is only a life in terest and after his death it goes to charity. "Lady John Hope inherits the bulk of Mr. Maugham's fortune whatever happens," he said. "That is irrevocable." Health Good Outside of his personal troubles Maugham is in good health for his great age. He says he does not come from a particularly long-lived fam ily yet his brother, Lord Maugham, lived to 92. His ap petite is good and his cook, Irene, prepares dishes from her native Italian cousine as well as French and English food. He long ago cultivated the habit of after-lunch siesta which his good friend Sir Winston Churchill, 88, also practices. 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