Maxime de la Falaise
| Maxime de la Falaise | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
Maxine Birley June 25, 1922 West Dean, West Sussex, England |
| Died | April 30, 2009 (aged 86) Provence, France |
| Known for | Model, actress, author |
| Spouse(s) | Count Alain Le Bailly de La Falaise John McKendry |
| Children |
Loulou Le Bailly de La Falaise Alexis Le Bailly de La Falaise |
| Parent(s) |
Sir Oswald Birley Rhoda Vava Mary Lecky Pike |
| Relatives |
Mark Birley (brother) Lady Annabel Vane-Tempest-Stewart (sister-in-law) Hugh Hornby Birley (2x great-grandfather) |
Maxime de la Falaise (25 June 1922 – 30 April 2009) was a 1950s model, and, in the 1960s, an underground movie actress. She is also remembered as a cookery writer and "food maven" and a fashion designer for Blousecraft, Chloé and Gérard Pipart [8]. In her later years she pursued a career as a furniture and interior designer.
She was born 25 June 1922 in West Dean, West Sussex as Maxine Birley. Maxine Birley was born into a family of successful artists, businesspeople, and academics. She grew up in Hampstead, and later at Charleston Manor in Sussex. Her father, Sir Oswald Birley (1880–1952), was a celebrated portrait painter known for his portraits of royalty and others. Her mother was Rhoda Vava Mary Lecky Pike (1900-1981), of County Carlow, Ireland, a celebrated gardener and successful artist in her own right. Maxine's brother, Mark Birley (1930–2007), became an entrepreneur known for his investments in the hospitality industry.
She changed her first name to Maxime after her first marriage, to Alain R. Le Bailly de la Falaise, in 1946. She was known as Maxime de la Falaise McKendry, for a while, after her second marriage to John McKendry, Curator of Prints and Drawings at the Metropolitan Museum.).
During the Second World War, she worked as a minor codebreaker at Bletchley Park, before being invalided out after developing kleptomania.
In the 1950s, Maxime de la Falaise worked for Elsa Schiaparelli as a vendeuse mondaine which she explained as "a sort of muse who was supposed to encourage sales to the rich English". She modelled for photographers such as Georges Dambier, Jack Robinson, and Cecil Beaton.
She "dressed with uninhibited chic" and according to The Independent, Cecil Beaton once called her "the only truly chic Englishwoman".
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