Churchill's Connections

Maxine Elliott

Home » Friends » Maxine Elliott

1869-1940
Jessie Dermott
US actress, socialite

  1. Introduction
  2. Stories
  3. Biographical summary
  4. See also
  5. Further reading
  6. References

1. Introduction

Jessie Dermott, stage name Maxine Elliott, was one of the best known stage actresses of her time and one of the first female theatre owners in the USA. She toured to the UK and was introduced to high society there, purchasing an English country house where she hosted many dignitaries. During World War I, she provided relief to an estimated 350,000 people from a barge in Belgium. With her wealth from acting and investments, she constructed a villa on the French Riviera where she continued her role as a hostess. Churchill visited her there on numerous occasions in the 1930s.

2. Stories

  • Maxine first visited England at age 15 with her father, a ship’s captain, on a voyage mainly intended to separate her from a young man in her home town of Rockland, Maine, USA.
  • Maxine was introduced to English high society by George and Alice Keppel, friends of Churchill’s mother Jennie.
  • In World War I, Maxine bought a barge to deliver relief in Belgium, which also became a means for continuing her hostess role.
  • The love of her life, Tony Wilding, a multiple Wimbledon tennis champion, was killed in World War I, after which she remained resolutely single.
  • Maxine spent her later years at her villa Château de l’Horizon on the French Riviera, where Churchill was a regular visitor in the 1930s.
  • It was at Maxine’s French villa that Churchill is alleged to have had an affair with Doris Delevingne, great-aunt of model and actress Cara Delevingne.
  • Maxine died at her French villa shortly before Churchill became prime minister in 1940.

Maxine first visited England at age 15 with her father, a ship’s captain, on a voyage mainly intended to separate her from a young man in her home town of Rockland, Maine, USA.

Her father Tom was born in Ireland and by the age of 10 was living rough in the docks of Liverpool. He was informally adopted by an American ship’s captain and grew up in the USA, becoming a skipper himself, plying the triangular trade route from the USA to South America, Europe and back. When he discovered that his 14-year-old daughter was secretly spending nights away from home with 24-year-old Arthur Hall, he took her with him on one of his voyages. They called in at New York, Rio de Janeiro, various Spanish ports, and Liverpool, giving Jessie an early taste of international life.

She completed her schooling in Boston, then spent the summer with a friend of family in New York, where she met George McDermott, a 30-year-old lawyer who married her as soon as she turned 16. Jessie’s father approved, but McDermott soon became abusive after starting to drink too much, and Jessie moved to live with her father in his new home in Oakland, California. At the age of 21 she returned to New York to enroll in a drama school at the Madison Square Theatre. With striking looks and a strong stage presence, she played minor characters until securing leading roles in popular plays under her new stage name: ‘Maxine’ for its sound and ‘Elliott’, her grandmother’s maiden name. Her sister Gertrude also became an actress, taking the stage name Gertrude Elliott.*

In 1895, she toured to London and received much positive publicity as well as party invitations from society hostesses, becoming friends with Winston Churchill’s parents and other dignitaries. Back in the USA, she divorced and remarried, and had considerable success on stage with her new husband Nat Goodwin. The couple also performed in the UK and bought a country house, Jackwood, in southeast London with their rapidly growing wealth, where they entertained many from the acting world. The foundations had been laid for Maxine’s future role as an international grande dame.

* Gertrude was a founder member and the second president of the Actresses’ Franchise League, an activist organisation promoting female suffrage, mainly in the UK. Maxine supported the organisation, as did many other well-known actresses of the day, such as Lily Langtry and Ellen Terry. Christabel Pankhurst (see Suffragettes) was a patron. It was active from 1908 to 1958, promoting equal pay and other citizenship issues for women.

Maxine was introduced to English high society by George and Alice Keppel, friends of Churchill’s mother Jennie.

It was probably through Jennie Churchill that Maxine met George Keppel, who was very well connected in British society, including being a friend of King Edward VII. Keppel was impressed with Maxine’s looks and conversation and realised that she would be an entertaining guest at his wife Alice’s parties. Mrs Keppel was a leading society hostess and Edward VII’s favourite mistress, with her husband’s knowledge. She took to inviting Maxine to her get-togethers where Maxine met the social elite including Margaret Greville, another renowned hostess, who entertained during the week in London and at weekends at her country house, Polesden Lacey in Surrey. The king asked Mrs Keppel for a meeting with Maxine, which was arranged, and he said he would attend her next show in London.

Maxine returned to the US and continued her career with Nat, from whom she was now separated, divorcing in 1908. She turned solo, amassing a small fortune as she became one of theatre’s best-known names. Her shrewd investments added to her wealth, assisted by the advice of her banker friend J.P. Morgan. She toured again to London, where Edward VII attended a performance and led the standing ovation. Winston Churchill took her to tea at the House of Commons on various occasions and played golf with her.

Her experiences in British society helped her in her frequent stage roles as an upper-class Englishwoman, but she began to tire of the theatre and wanted to live the part in real life. She sold Jackwood and bought Hartsbourne Manor near Bushey, Hertfordshire in 1909, which was renovated to include central heating, an ensuite bathroom for each bedroom and hot water from taps, rare luxuries at the time. The king sent her a note to say he would like to visit, and great preparations were made. However, he died of bronchitis in May 1910, and the ‘King’s Room’ was never used by its intended occupant.

Churchill enjoyed painting at Hartsbourne and mingling with its distinguished guests. Clementine, a good tennis player, was attracted there by its tennis courts. It is now part of the Hartsbourne Country Club.

In World War I, Maxine bought a barge to deliver relief in Belgium, which also became a means for continuing her hostess role.

After the outbreak of the war, Maxine decided to purchase a large van with her friend Millicent Leveson-Gower (pronounced ‘LOOssen Gore’), Duchess of Sutherland, and convert it into an ambulance. She accompanied it to Boulogne-sur-Mer in France, an hour’s drive from the fighting in Flanders. Together with a nurse and other drivers, they transported wounded soldiers to field hospitals. The need was considerable and Maxine went on to provide a total of 12 ambulances.

She heard about the plight of Belgians who had fled Nazi atrocities in towns and villages and were hiding in the countryside with little shelter or food. Many were dying from malnutrition, illness and cold. Purchasing a 150-foot (46 metre) barge, Julia, she fitted it out for first aid, distribution of supplies and feeding hundreds of people per day. She contributed much of the funding herself, depleting her finances until after the war. Churchill made space in navy vessels for her supplies to be transported from England. Maxine obtained the necessary permissions and navigated the waterways with a small crew and dog Dinah, providing assistance to an estimated 350,000 people. She became known as ‘Our Lady of the Boats’.

When knowledge about the barge spread, it began to receive visitors from the front, including the 5th Duke of Sutherland, the 2nd Duke of Westminster, and the sons of many of Maxine’s high society friends in England. Churchill visited several times while based in Ploegsteert as a lieutenant-colonel in 1916, commanding the 6th Battalion of the Royal Scots Fusiliers. On one occasion he took his second-in-command Archibald Sinclair, later leader of the Liberal party, and on another he took Eddie Spears, liaison officer between the British and French armies.

After a year, the barge’s role was recognised as vital war relief and an official organisation took over its work. She was appointed a Knight of the Order of the Crown by the king of Belgium, one of the country’s highest honours.

The love of her life, Tony Wilding, a multiple Wimbledon tennis champion, was killed in World War I, after which she remained resolutely single.

Tony Wilding was born in New Zealand to English expatriates and studied law at Cambridge University, becoming a barrister. His first appearance at Wimbledon was in 1904 at age 20. He won the tournament four times in 1910-13 and the World Hard Court Championships twice in 1913-14 and was considered to be the world number one (there was no official ranking at the time). He also won four Wimbledon doubles titles. His tennis skills and considerable charm earned him many invitations to English country houses, including being asked by the 9th Duke of Marlborough to play in an exhibition match at Blenheim Palace for King George V and Queen Mary. He became a frequent visitor to Hartsbourne Manor, where he helped Maxine to improve her tennis ability.

In 1913, they became engaged, when Maxine was 45 and Tony was 30. No date for the marriage was set, and in August 1914 Britain declared war on Germany. Churchill, as first lord of the Admiralty, had advised Tony to join the Royal Marines, which he did temporarily before being transferred to the Intelligence Corps, then to the Royal Navy Armoured Division.

Before the war Tony had travelled widely through France on his motorbike, learning French on the way. He was also a good mechanic, an important part of the intelligence role when driving close to enemy lines in unreliable motor vehicles. Having started as a second lieutenant, he quickly became a lieutenant and then captain, with a command of thirty men, three guns and some Rolls Royce armoured cars, serving under Hugh Grosvenor, 2nd Duke of Westminster (see Coco Chanel).

On 9 May 1915, after a twelve-hour attack on Aubers Ridge, 45 miles (70 km) south-east of Dunkirk, Tony was resting in a dug-out on the front line when he was killed by a direct hit from a shell. Maxine received the news on her barge the next day. She was never the same person again and was particularly regretful that their last meeting had ended with an argument. She remained steadfastly single for the rest of her life. After her death, all letters from Tony were destroyed on her instructions.

Maxine spent her later years at her villa Château de l’Horizon on the French Riviera, where Churchill was a regular visitor in the 1930s.

After Tony’s death, Maxine continued some entertainment at Hartsbourne Manor but with much less enthusiasm. Her final stage performance was in 1920, aged 52. In 1921, she was saddened further by the death of her friend Jennie, Winston’s mother. She sold Hartsbourne in 1923 after buying 20 Abbey Road in St John’s Wood, northwest London, near the pedestrian crossing on the Beatles’ Abbey Road album cover.

She was visited there by her friend Elsa Maxwell, a hostess, writer and musician who organised parties and games for high society in Paris, London and other cities. One of Elsa’s scavenger hunts involved people driving around Paris trying to collect items such as three hairs from a redheaded woman, a black swan from the Bois de Boulogne, a pom-pom from a French sailor’s cap and a handkerchief from Maurice de Rothschild’s house. The evening ended with Elsa’s apartment containing a baby crocodile and a donkey, but no black swans. She observed Maxine’s depression and persuaded her to spend time in Paris, where the party atmosphere during the roaring twenties helped to revive her spirit. Maxine bought a luxury apartment there and began to split her time between Paris, the French Riviera and New York.

Attracted by the exotic company on the Riviera including British aristocrats and American movie stars, she purchased a plot of land near Cannes in 1930 and had a large villa constructed which she called Château de l’Horizon. Churchill made several visits there from August 1933 to January 1939.  He, Maxine and other guests would play mahjong, bezique and backgammon for hours. Churchill also painted and enjoyed using the large water slide from the villa down into the sea.

After one of his visits, Maxine wrote to him saying, ‘Never have I seen you in such good form and our jaws ached with laughter continually – your joie de vivre is a wonderful gift and on a par with your other amazing gifts – in fact you are the most unusually gifted creature in the whole wide world.’1

It was at Maxine’s French villa that Churchill is alleged to have had an affair with Doris Delevingne, great-aunt of model and actress Cara Delevingne.

Doris Delevingne (pronounced Della-VEEN) was the daughter of a south London haberdashery shop owner who made her way into high society through her good looks, long legs and willingness to be a mistress to various wealthy men. In 1928 she became Lady Castlerosse through marriage to Valentine Browne, Viscount Castlerosse. In the 1930s, she stayed at Château de l’Horizon on various occasions at the same time as Churchill, who made three or four paintings of her.

In 1985, Churchill’s private secretary Jock Colville said that Churchill had had an affair with Doris. The titillating tale was already well known in certain circles, including in the Delevingne family. Reference is sometimes made to some alleged love letters found by Churchill’s literary assistant, Denis Kelly. Churchill helped to secure a hard-to-obtain passenger ticket for Doris to travel from New York to London in 1942; some say that this was after she threatened to display a sultry Churchill painting of her.

Piers Brendon, Richard Langworth and Andrew Roberts have dealt with the details of the Doris rumour and provided firm dismissals. Colville did not work with Churchill until years after the alleged liaison, and also said that he bet Churchill did not have an affair, contradicting himself. Kelly, finder of the supposed love letters, said that to the best of his knowledge Churchill had never been unfaithful. The allegedly sensual painting is now at Longleat in Wiltshire; ‘sultry’ is an imaginative description.

Other stories have sometimes been created from or mixed up with the Doris rumour. One was that Churchill strayed with Maxine Elliott. Another was from a visit in 1919 by Churchill to see French socialite Daisy Fellowes at the Ritz Paris, finding her lying naked on a tiger skin rug. He fled. Winston’s son Randolph does indeed seem to have had an affair with Doris.

A portrait of Doris by Churchill hangs in his art studio at Chartwell. Clementine could easily have suppressed or destroyed the portrait if she had had any concerns (she instigated the destruction of other paintings that she particularly disliked: see Paul Maze).

Maxine died at her French villa shortly before Churchill became prime minister in 1940.

When Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, Maxine was 71 and had suffered a mild stroke three months earlier. Her family wanted her to move to the UK but she was determined to remain in her Riviera villa for as long as possible. Churchill’s planned visit in August or September was cancelled and Maxine was too unwell to attend Randolph Churchill’s wedding to Pamela Digby in London in October. No-one could anticipate that Pamela would later live in Maxine’s villa as the mistress of Prince Aly Khan, son of Aga Khan III.

Maxine made part of the property available to French soldiers, and another part became a workshop for clothes for conscripts’ children. When fabrics ran out, she allowed her own dresses to be cut into pieces. She donated regular sums for relief to the local mayor and gave a party and presents for 200 children at Christmas. In February 1940, she wrote to Churchill that ‘The reserves of the Château de l’Horizon are often strained but we are happy to help where we can’.2

This was her last letter to him. She died suddenly in March 1940, collapsing in her bathroom. Her doctor Paul Brès wrote to Churchill two hours after her death, saying that ‘she had a brutal seizure and in two seconds she was gone. […] I cannot write this without trembling (excuse my handwriting). We have lost a great friend and I know what a terrible shock the sad news will be to you. […] There is in the ears her last words said this morning, about you, “Winston knows how to take his responsibilities – nothing can frighten him – he should be Prime Minister!”’3 Churchill became prime minister two months later.

Upon her death, Maxine bequeathed the villa to her sister Gertrude and four nieces. Two of her servants hid some of her prized possessions, including paintings from Churchill, in a cottage in the hills nearby for the rest of the war. The villa was occupied on and off by the Nazis and survived reasonably intact, although landmines were left in the garden. The villa was sold in 1948 to Prince Aly Khan and was later purchased by the Saudi Arabian royal family.

3. Biographical overview

OccupationActress, businesswoman and socialite
CountryUSA
CareerStarted acting at age 22 (1890). Hired as a supporting actress by Augustin Daly, theatre director (1895). Leading actress on Broadway (from 1903). Toured to Britain; seen by Edward VII (1905). Opened Maxine Elliott’s Theatre (1908). Procured and operated a relief barge in Belgium (1916-17). Performed in Goldwyn Pictures movies (1917-18). Last acting appearance at age 52 (1920). Society hostess at her villa on the French Riviera (from 1932).
Born1868, Rockland, Maine, USA (six years older than Churchill); birth name Jessie Dermott (‘Dettie’); adopted the stage name Maxine Elliott in 1889.
FatherThomas Dermott (‘Tom’) (1837-1915), sea captain; born in Ireland; married Adelaide Hall 1863; married Isabella Paine (‘Belle’) 1891
MotherAdelaide Hall (1842-1888), descendent of Bohemian Protestant immigrants; schoolteacher; died age 45
SiblingsSecond of six children:
1. Thomas Junior (b. 1865)
2. Jessica ‘Jessie’, later ‘Maxine’ (1869-1940)
3. Lewis (b. 1871)
4. Gracie (1872-73)
5. May ‘Gertrude’ (1874-1950), actress; stage name Gertrude Elliott; married Johnston Forbes-Robertson, English actor
6. Samuel (1877-1932)
EducationHigh school in USA
Spouses1. George A. McDermott, m. 1884, div. 1896; a lawyer nearly twice Maxine’s age of 16 on marriage
2. Nathaniel ‘Nat’ Goodwin (1857-1919), m. 1898, div. 1908; comedian and actor with whom she performed
RelationshipsPossibly J.P. Morgan. Possibly Edward VII. Anthony Wilding (1883-1915), tennis player; engaged in 1913; killed in World War I.
ChildrenPregnant by Arthur Hall when she was 15; outcome of pregnancy not known (perhaps miscarriage)
Died1940 at Château de l’Horizon, Vallauris, near Cannes, France, aged 72 (25 years before Churchill)
BuriedProtestant Cemetery, Cannes, France
ChartwellVisitors’ Book:
Other ClubNo
Nickname–
Height5’6” (1.68 m)

4. See also

French Riviera

Portraits destroyed at Clementine’s instigation

  • Maze, Paul (Graham Sutherland portrait and Paul Maze sketch of Churchill)
  • Sickert, Walter (Sickert sketch of Churchill)

Churchill’s female friends

Miscellaneous

Churchill controversies

  • Sexual allegations

5. Further reading

Maxine Elliott

  • Forbes-Robertson, Diana, My Aunt Maxine: The Story of Maxine Elliott, 1964
  • IMDb, ‘Maxine Elliott’, IMDb, 2020

The French Riviera

  • De Courcy, Anne, Chanel’s Riviera: Life, Love and the Struggle for Survival on the Côte d’Azur, 1930–1944 (Orion, 2019)
  • Emerson, Maureen, Riviera Dreaming: Love and War on the Côte d’Azur (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2018)
  • Lovell, Mary S., The Riviera Set: 1920-1960: The Golden Years of Glamour and Excess, 2016

Alleged Churchill affair with Doris Castlerosse

Characters associated with Maxine Elliott

  • Harris, Clive, and Julian Whippy, The Greater Game: Sporting Icons Who Fell in the Great War (Pen & Sword Books, 2008) (includes a chapter on Tony Wilding)
  • Maxwell, Elsa, I Married the World (Heinemann, 1955)
  • Myers, A. Wallis, Captain Anthony Wilding (Hodder and Stoughton, 1916) (in the public domain in the USA)
  • Staggs, S., Inventing Elsa Maxwell: How an Irrepressible Nobody Conquered High Society, Hollywood, the Press, and the World (St. Martin’s Publishing Group, 2012)

6. References

1. Maxine Elliott, ‘Letter to Winston Churchill’ (CHAR 1/343/34-36, 1 February 1939).

2. Maxine Elliott, ‘Letter to Winston Churchill’ (CHAR 2/394, 18 February 1940).

3. Paul Brès, ‘Letter to Winston Churchill’ (CHAR 2/394, 5 March 1940).