New York Adult Entertainment: Daughter’s lost tapes expose cruel So…
Although the couple married after Liza’s birth, Maugham remained very distant and was far more attached to two men, Gerald Haxton, whom he met while serving as a medic during the first world war, and Alan Searle, a later companion. Searle even tried to supplant Liza in the author’s will by casting doubt on her legitimacy.
In the tapes, Liza recalls how as an eight-year-old she went for a drive on the French Riviera — where her father spent much of his time — with Haxton, a friend and her puppy.
“Suddenly, in an act of possibly drunken, seemingly inexplicable cruelty, Gerald at the wheel scooped up the dog and hurled it out of the window,” she said.
“I was hysterical and tried to throw myself out of the car after it, but was held back.” Miraculously, the dog survived and turned up several months later.
Hastings’s biography, published this week, reveals how Haxton would procure teenage boys for Maugham in France. They also kept a male prostitute at the novelist’s villa for their own pleasure and that of guests.
See the full article from “Times Online”