Date of Birth

3 August 1920, Clarinda, Iowa, USA

Date of Death

20 March 1972, Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA

Maxwell was a crowd-pleaser and stalwart trouper in Bob Hope's legendary tours of US and Allied military installations around the world.

She was once compared to Marilyn Monroe and replied, "Hey, I'm the blond with her clothes on."

Her singing "Silver Bells" in The Lemon Drop Kid (1951) gave us another Christmas carol.

Trained in dance from age 3.

Tall and blonde with good looks and a pleasant singing voice, she scampered through a bunch of breezy, forgettable film roles. Her style was once described as part Joan Blondell's "Good Joe" and part Mae West's vamp.

Part of her USO touring act with Bob Hope was wearing a tight sweater and singing "I Want to Love You."

Popular in nightclubs, particulary New York's famed Latin Quarter.

A radio singer before signing up with MGM. Studio head Louis B. Mayer wisely insisted she change "Marvel", which was her real first name. She dropped it and kept Marilyn, which was her middle name.

Appeared on TV as a sexy foil to many top comedians, especially Bob Hope and Red Skelton.

A close friend of Rock Hudson, she helped closet his homosexuality by making frequent public appearances with him and teasing reporters about how their relationship was "only a friendship."

Her 15-year-old son Matthew found her dead in the bathroom of their home in 1972, the victim of a heart attack brought on by high blood pressure and a pulmonary ailment. Rock Hudson looked after her son during the funeral arrangements.

Son Matthew Paul born on April 28, 1956.

At one low point in 1967 she performed in a burlesque show as a stripper in Queens, New York.

She married MGM actor John Conte in 1944 in The Little Church Around the Corner in New York City; they divorced two years later. Her second marriage to restaurateur Anders McIntyre lasted one year. Her third marriage to writer/producer Jerry Davis produced a son, Matthew. They divorced after six years of marriage.

Profiled in "Killer Tomatoes: Fifteen Tough Film Dames" bu Ray Hagen and Laura Wagner (McFarland, 2004).

Price:  £75.00