[5] Maxwell is especially known for her role playing spoiled flirtatious teen-aged pretty blonde-haired schoolgirl "Ellie Corbett" on a chaperoned Hawaii vacation trip with her teacher Miss Abigail Prentiss and two other girls in Blue Hawaii (released November 1961), a typical example of producer / director Hal Wallis' (1898-1986) popular series of Elvis Presley (1935–1977) films during the decade, featuring his rock and roll music.

Elvis' character Chad, a tour guide, eventually tames rebellious, nasty-tempered Ellie by spanking her on the beach at night, after she visits and attempts to seduce him in his hotel room.

Rejected, she grabs a hotel jeep, driving recklessly into the night, pursued by him, then crashes it, jumps out on the beach and swims into the surf to end her life in desperation.

After her spanking and crying fit, and Chad's lecture, she later undergoes a dramatic, seemingly miraculous, change of personality showing a sweet, considerate, polite attitude at breakfast the following morning with the others.

She also appeared in Blue Denim (1959); Take Her, She's Mine (1963, which also starred James Stewart); and Shotgun Wedding (also 1963), Maxwell's cinematic swan song, co-written by infamous filmmaker Edward D. Wood, Jr., 1924–1978).