Maxime de la Falaise

She was born 22 June 1922 in West Dean, West Sussex, England as Maxine Birley[8] 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.[9][10] 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.[11]

She changed her first name to Maxime after her first marriage, to French aristocrat Alain Le Bailly de La Falaise, in 1946.[12][13] 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.[4][14]

During the Second World War, she worked as a minor codebreaker at Bletchley Park, before being invalided out after developing kleptomania.[15][12]

On 18 July 1946, Maxime Birley became the second wife of Count (comte) Alain Le Bailly de La Falaise, (1905—1977) and was thus styled Countess (comtesse) Maxime de La Falaise.[1] They divorced in 1950, following a series of her infidelities, including an affair with British ambassador Duff Cooper.[20] They had two children:

• Louise Vava Lucia Henriette ("Loulou") Le Bailly de La Falaise (1947—2011), who also became a fashion model and, later, a muse to Yves Saint Laurent and a fashion designer herself.[3] Loulou de La Falaise's first husband was Desmond FitzGerald, 29th Knight of Glin, with whom she had no children; they married in 1966, separated in 1967, and divorced in 1970. In 1977, she married the writer Thadée Klossowski de Rola, a son of the painter Balthus, by whom she had a daughter: Anna Klossowski de Rola.[21]
• Alexis Richard Dion Oswald Le Bailly de La Falaise, (1948-2004) was a furniture designer who also appeared in the 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.

Maxime de La Falaise married, as her second husband, John McKendry, curator of prints and photography at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, who died in 1975. During the marriage it has been suggested that he had an affair with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe,[22] while she had one with J. Paul Getty III, artist Max Ernst, and film director Louis Malle.[23][24][25] La Falaise is said to have aided Mapplethorpe's entry "into high society, European and American."[26]

Maxime de La Falaise died of natural causes, aged 86, at her home in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Provence, on 30 April 2009.[2]

• Maxime de La Falaise – Daily Telegraph obituary