William Somerset Maugham was an English writer, known for his plays, novels and short stories. Born in Paris, where he spent his first ten years, Maugham was schooled in England and went to a German university. He became a medical student in London and qualified as a physician in 1897. He never practised medicine, and became a full-time writer. His first novel, Liza of Lambeth (1897), a study of life in the slums, attracted attention, but it was as a playwright that he first achieved national celebrity. By 1908 he had four plays running at once in the West End of London. He wrote his 32nd and last play in 1933, after which he abandoned the theatre and concentrated on novels and short stories.
Douglas Elton Fairbanks Jr. was an American actor, producer, and decorated naval officer of World War II. He is best-known for starring in such films as The Prisoner of Zenda (1937), Gunga Din (1939), and The Corsican Brothers (1941). He was the son of Douglas Fairbanks and the stepson of Mary Pickford, and his first marriage was to actress Joan Crawford.
The Power of the Press is a 1928 American silent drama film directed by Frank Capra and starring Douglas Fairbanks Jr. as an aspiring newspaper reporter and Jobyna Ralston as a young woman suspected of murder.
The Letter is a 1927 play by W. Somerset Maugham, dramatised from a short story that first appeared in his 1926 collection The Casuarina Tree. The story was inspired by the real-life Ethel Proudlock case which involved the wife of the headmaster of Victoria Institution in Kuala Lumpur who was convicted in a murder trial after shooting dead a male friend in April 1911. She was eventually pardoned.
Parachute Jumper is a 1933 American pre-Code black-and-white comedy drama film directed by Alfred E. Green. Based on a story by Rian James titled "Some Call It Love", it stars Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Bette Davis and Frank McHugh.
Young America is a 1932 American Pre-Code drama film about two juvenile delinquents, Arthur and Nutty, directed by Frank Borzage and starring Spencer Tracy and Doris Kenyon. It was first adapted for the screen by Maurine Watkins from the play by Fred Ballard. William M. Conselman rewrote the screenplay, and Maurine Watkins's name no longer appeared on the credits. Raymond Borzage plays Edward "Nutty" Beamish.
Charles Vernon France was a British actor, usually credited as C. V. France.
Suspicion is the title of an American television mystery drama series which aired on the NBC from 1957 through 1958. The executive producer of half of the filmed episodes (10) of Suspicion was film director Alfred Hitchcock.
For Services Rendered is a play by Somerset Maugham. First performed in London in 1932, the play is about the effects of World War I on an English family.
The Jazz Age (1929) is a sound part-talkie film starring Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Marceline Day, and Joel McCrea in his first leading role. In addition to sequences with audible dialogue or talking sequences, the film features a synchronized musical score and sound effects along with English intertitles. The film, directed by Lynn Shores and written by Randolph Bartlett, was released by RKO Radio Pictures soon after RKO was created from Film Booking Offices of America, RCA, and the Keith-Albee-Orpheum theater chain.
Smith is a 1917 English silent romance film directed by Maurice Elvey and starring Elisabeth Risdon, Fred Groves and Manora Thew. It was based on the 1909 play Smith by Somerset Maugham.
He Comes Up Smiling is a 1918 American comedy film produced by and starring Douglas Fairbanks and directed by Allan Dwan.
Lady in the Iron Mask is a 1952 American adventure film directed by Ralph Murphy, produced by Walter Wanger and starring Louis Hayward as D'Artagnan and Patricia Medina in the title role. Alan Hale, Jr. portrays Porthos, Judd Holdren plays Aramis, and Steve Brodie appears as Athos in this Three Musketeers adventure film, a reworking of Douglas Fairbanks' 1929 screen epic The Iron Mask, an adaptation of the last section of the 1847-1850 novel The Vicomte de Bragelonne by Alexandre Dumas, père, which is itself based on the French legend of the Man in the Iron Mask. The film's sets were designed by the art director Martin Obzina and shot in Supercinecolor.
Melody for Two is a 1937 American musical film directed by Louis King and starring James Melton, Patricia Ellis and Marie Wilson.
Public Deb No. 1 is a 1940 American comedy film directed by Gregory Ratoff and starring George Murphy, Brenda Joyce and Ralph Bellamy.
Ethel Irving was a British stage actress. She also appeared in five films.
The Narrow Corner is a novel by the British writer W. Somerset Maugham, published by William Heinemann in 1932.
Fast Life is a 1929 American all-talking sound drama film directed by John Francis Dillon and written by John F. Goodrich. It is based on the 1928 play Fast Life by Samuel Shipman and John B. Hymer. The film stars Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Loretta Young, William Holden, Frank Sheridan, Chester Morris and Ray Hallor. The film was released by Warner Bros. on September 1, 1929.
Ursula O'Leary was an English stage, radio and television actor. O'Leary graduated in stage management from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (RADA) in 1948. Her stage performances were broadcast live nationwide; on radio she played siren art teacher Jane Petrie in The Archers.
The playwright, novelist and short-story writer W. Somerset Maugham, was a prolific author from the late 19th century until the 1960s. Most of his earliest successes were for the theatre, but he gave up writing plays after 1932. Many of his plays have been adapted for broadcasting and the cinema, as have several of his novels and short stories. The New York Times commented in 1964, "There are times when one thinks that British television and radio would have to shut up shop if there were not an apparently inexhaustible supply of stories by Maugham to turn into 30-minute plays. One recalls, too, the long list of movies that have been made from his novels − Of Human Bondage, The Moon and Sixpence, The Painted Veil, The Razor's Edge and the rest.
