Background
She was born in West Dean, West Sussex as Maxine Birley. She changed her first name to Maxime after her first marriage, to Alain R. Le Bailly de la Falaise, Ecuyer, 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.).
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, was a celebrated portrait painter known for his portraits of royalty and others. Her mother was Rhoda Vava Mary Lecky Pike 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.
During the Second World War, she worked as a minor codebreaker at Bletchley Park, before being invalided out after developing kleptomania.
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