Maxine Elliott

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Elliott, Maxine [née Jessie Dermot] (1868–1940), actress. The daughter of a New England sea captain, she had no specific affection for the stage but took up acting solely as a means of support and quit when she had made her fortune, although much of her wealth actually derived from gifts and financial advice from her well‐placed admirers. While most recognized that her dramatic abilities were limited, Elliott's beauty and charm, coupled for a time with a careful selection of vehicles, made her a favorite for some twenty years. Her biographer‐niece pictured her as having “brilliant black hair, ivory skin, enormous eyes. . .described as ‘midnight eyes,’ and features of even proportion.” After assuming her stage name at the suggestion of Dion Boucicault, she made her debut in New York in 1890 in The Middleman, then toured with its star, E. S. Willard, in a repertory of plays for two years. She briefly joined the company of Augustin Daly, but his policy of frequently changing plays and assigning his actors both major and minor roles displeased the ambitious actress, so she left and married actor Nat Goodwin, whom she co‐starred with in An American Citizen (1897), The Rivals (1897), Nathan Hale (1899), The Cowboy and the Lady (1899), When We Were Twenty‐one (1900), and The Merchant of Venice (1900). After divorcing Goodwin she shone as Georgiana in the Spanish‐American War play Her Own Way (1903). Elliott's last success was as American Jo Sheldon wooed by a prince in Her Great Match (1905). In 1908 she opened her own theatre in New York, but all her productions there failed, so she retired in 1911, returning briefly as Cordelia in Trimmed in Scarlet (1920). Of her work in this last play Alexander Woollcott repeated what had been often said, “Besides her lustrous beauty, she has dignity, a pleasing and thoroughly mastered voice, taste, humor and intelligence.” She passed her remaining years in France and England. Biography: My Aunt Maxine, Diana Forbes‐Robertson, 1964.