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For over thirty years Robin Maugham was one of Britain's most popular writers. He was the author of over 30 books, which included travel, autobiography, short stories and novels as he regularly wrote for stage, screen and television. His most famous book, The Servant, was memorably filmed by Joseph Losey in 1963 and starred Dirk Bogarde and James Fox.
Born in 1916 Robert Cecil Romer Maugham was the son of Frederic Herbert Maugham, a Lord High Chancellor of England, and nephew of W.Somerset Maugham, the writer. Educated at Eton and Trinity Hall, Cambridge he joined the Inns of Court Regiment as a Trooper in 1939 and was commissioned into the County of London Yeomanry in 1940. Wounded in the head in desert tank warfare, he was mentioned in dispatches by his Commanding Officer.
His first book Come to Dust was described as a 'classic' by Graham Greene and among his other best known books were The Wrong People, The Second Window, Line on Ginger, Somerset and all the Maughams, Conversations with Willie, and his bestselling autobiography Escape From The Shadows. As a writer of fiction, his talent lay in his gripping dialog, clipped narratives and he reappearing themes of control and corruption. "I write of control and the hold people have over each other" he said "because that is how I see it. It is a predominant factor in everyone."
Nearly all of Maugham's books were optioned for films. Line on Ginger was filmed as The Intruder (1953)and starred Jack Hawkins, Michael Medwin and Dennis Price. The Black Tent (1956, co-written with Bryan Forbes) starred Anthony Steel and Donald Sinden. The Rough and the Smooth (1959), directed by Robert Siodmak, starred William Bendix and Tony Britton.
Maugham's screenplay for The Wrong People, a homosexual thriller, was bought in the 1960s by the film actor Sal Mineo but was never filmed. The novel was published under the pen name of David Griffin in America in 1967. Published against the advice of his uncle who warned that its appearance would seriously damage his reputation it became a surprise bestseller and was reissued under Maugham's own name.
Maugham's novel The Dividing Line (1979) was due to be filmed with Elizabeth Taylor playing a lead role but production never started.
A Peer of the Realm, Lord Maugham appeared frequently on international television talk shows and in 1968 on BBC2 Late Night Line Up announced to a startled Sheridan Morley that he "loved boys as much as girls." His last television appearance was shortly before his death in 1981 in a BBC2 documentary, Somerset Maugham, in which he talked about his uncle.
In an interview before he died Maugham said "I'm cheerful about life because I have never been afraid of death. After all I have had four tanks shot from under me. I was buried alive in the Agadir earthquake for five hours with every rib in my body broken and on one of my trips to Africa I nearly died of food poisoning."
