Jenny Maxwell

Jenny Maxwell
Blue Hawaii, 1961

Born: September 3, 1941 in New York City, New York.
Died: June 10, 1981 in Los Angeles, California.
Husbands: Paul W. Rapp (1957 - 1960)
Ervin M. Roeder (1970 - 1981)

Jenny Maxwell is remembered in the Elvis world, and perhaps everywhere else, as Ellie the spoiled brat in Blue Hawaii who doesn't really fit in, or get along, with any of the other teenage girls in the tour group that Elvis leads around. And, oh yeah, she eventually gets an Elvis-spanking. Oh, sure, she had plenty of other scenes, but that's the one that gets all the press. There are some scenes in Elvis movies that nowadays you just kinda cringe and turn away (OK, maybe not all of you).

The rest of Jenny's acting career was mainly guest appearances on TV, beginning in the late '50s. After Blue Hawaii, she did make a couple of film appearances. Shotgun Wedding, a comedy set in the backwoods, and cowritten by the notorious Ed Wood Jr., and from the sounds of it, is even more low-budget than Kissin' Cousins, which of course means I've got to see it someday! She followed that up with an appearance in Take Her, She's Mine, a nice Jimmy Stewart family film with a couple of Elvis' Other Women, Cynthia Pepper and Irene Tsu, in which they all play teenage girlfriends of Sandra Dee. She continued to do guest shots on TV up through 1968.

Sadly, Jenny's story doesn't end happily. In 1981, she and her second husband, Ervin Roeder, not long after being legally separated, were shot and killed in the lobby of their apartment building in Beverly Hills. As far as I can gather, the case was never solved.