Mary Elizabeth Maugham
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mary Elizabeth Maugham (born Mary Elizabeth Wellcome, 1915 - 1998)[1] known as "Liza", was the only child of English playwright, novelist, and short story writer William Somerset Maugham and his then mistress, Syrie Wellcome.
Liza Maugham's parents married in 1917, after her mother's divorce from the British pharmeceuticals magnate Henry Wellcome. Her mother was a daughter of orphanage founder Thomas John Barnardo.
On 20 July 1937, she married Lt.-Col. Vincent Paravicini, a son of the Swiss Minister to the U.K, Charles Paravicini. They divorced in 1948. In the same year, she married Lord John Adrian Hope, who later became the first Baron Glendevon. She had children by both marriages.
In his memoir Looking Back (1962) Somerset Maugham scandalously denied paternity of Liza and attempted to have her disinherited, suggesting that she was actually the child of Syrie Maugham and Henry Wellcome. A subsequent court case determined that Maugham was her biological father.
[edit] References
- ^ Her birth name is given as Mary Elizabeth Wellcome in the immigration and naturalization files of ellisisland.org, wherein she is listed, along with her mother, then Syrie Wellcome, on the 21 July 1916 manifest of the HMS Baltic.
