Maxime de la Falaise

Maxime Le Bailly, comtesse de La Falaise (25 June 1922 – 30 April 2009), was an English-Irish 1950s model, and, in the 1960s, an underground movie actress. as well as a fashion designer for Blousecraft, Chloé and Gérard Pipart.

Early life She was born 22 June 1922 in West Dean, West Sussex, England as Maxine Birley into a family of successful artists, businesspeople and academics. She grew up in Hampstead, and later at Charleston Manor, East 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, of County Carlow, a gardener and successful artist. 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 French aristocrat Alain 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.

Career During the Second World War, she worked as a minor codebreaker at Bletchley Park, before being invalided out after developing kleptomania. She modelled for photographers such as Jack Robinson and Cecil Beaton. She "dressed with uninhibited chic"

Writing While living in New York Maxime de La Falaise wrote a food column for Vogue magazine.

Andy Warhol Andy Warhol envisioned Maxime de La Falaise as part of Andy Warhol's Nothing Serious, his 1971 video project designed for television.

Personal life On 18 July 1946, Maxime Birley became the second wife of Count (comte) Alain Le Bailly de La Falaise, (1905—1977) and was styled Countess (comtesse) Maxime de La Falaise. Alexis Richard Dion Oswald Le Bailly de La Falaise, (1948-2004) was a furniture designer who also appeared in the 1967 Warhol film Tub Girls. Alexis' had two children: Daniel de La Falaise, is a chef, food writer, and photographer, and is married to Molly Malone; and Lucie de La Falaise, is a model, and is married to Marlon Richards, son of Keith Richards and Anita Pallenberg. while she had one with J. Paul Getty III, artist Max Ernst, and film director Louis Malle. La Falaise is said to have aided Mapplethorpe's entry "into high society, European and American."

Maxime de La Falaise died of natural causes, aged 86, at her home in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Provence, on 30 April 2009.