Maugham and Sadie II - Sadie in Samoa

Sadie Thompson, who I mentioned yesterday, deserves a bit more of a plug as I’ve been re-reading W Somerset Maugham’s short story Miss Thompson (or Rain) for a piece of writing on famous American Madams of the Orient. Maugham wrote the story after leaving Hawaii with Sadie Thompson, a notorious prostitute and madam who’d been expelled. They were both sailing to Samoa where she launched another brothel which included, handily, a laundry (pictured left in 1928).

Maugham described her boarding of his ship, the Sonoma, as a “blond runaway” from the Iwelei Stockade, Honolulu’s red light district, running up the gangplank at the last moment before departure. Sadie is later recorded in Pago Pago, Samoa, as “running a House of Prostitution” catering to U.S. sailors. Maugham claimed Sadie's shipboard antics with her Samoan lover kept him up nights - which must have meant he was pretty tired when he got to Somoa - as you can see it's a hell of schlep across the Pacific.

Yesterday I bemoaned the fact that you can’t stay at Maugham’s hotel in Honolulu, the Alexander Young Hotel, as it was demolished in the 80s and is now a characterless condo. The good news is that you can stay in Sadie’s old bordello in Pago Pago which is now the Sadie Thompson Inn - http://www.sadieshotels.com/. So if you’re in Pago Pago don’t pass up the chance to stay in a bordello.

Incidentally Sadie has made it to the silver screen several times most notably in 1928 in a silent starring Gloria Swanson;

then in 1932 with Joan Crawford;

and in 1953 with Rita Hayworth which gives me an excuse to

put some women on my blog for a change.