The Lady Glendevon | |
|---|---|
| Born | Mary Elizabeth Wellcome 1 September 1915 |
| Died | 27 December 1998 (aged 83) |
| Other names | Liza Maugham |
| Spouses | Lt.-Col. Vincent Paravicini
(m. 1936; div. 1948) |
| Children | 4, including:
|
| Parents | |
| Relatives | Thomas John Barnardo (maternal grandfather) |
Mary Elizabeth Hope, Baroness Glendevon (1 September 1915 – 27 December 1998)[1] (née Wellcome, later Maugham,[2] formerly Paravicini), was the only child of the English writer W. Somerset Maugham by his then-mistress Syrie Wellcome, a daughter of orphanage founder Thomas John Barnardo.[3]
She was known as Liza, after her father's first successful novel, Liza of Lambeth. She was the plaintiff in one of the most celebrated family law trials of the early 1960s, when she challenged Somerset Maugham's attempt to prove that she was not his child. At her birth in 1915 her mother was still married to the British pharmaceuticals magnate Henry Wellcome, whom she divorced before marrying Somerset Maugham in 1917.
In his 1962 memoir Looking Back, Somerset Maugham, who was bisexual, denied paternity of Liza. Around the same time, he attempted to have her disinherited in order to adopt his male secretary, suggesting that she was actually the child of Syrie by either Henry Wellcome, Gordon Selfridge or an unknown lover. The subsequent 21-month court case, fought in British and French courts, determined that Maugham was her biological father, and the author was legally barred from his adoption plans. Maugham's daughter was awarded approximately $1,400,000 in damages, comprising $280,000 in a cash settlement to compensate her for paintings originally willed to her, along with royalties for some of his books, and the controlling interest in his French villa.[4]