Immensely popular, she was rumored to have intimate relationships with highly notable people such as King Edward VII and J.P. Morgan.

][3] By age 15 in 1883, Jessie had been seduced and made pregnant by a 25-year-old man whom she may have married underage, according to the biography by Diana Forbes-Robertson, her niece.

[citation needed] Eliott later developed a relationship with a man from a rich local family, Arthur Hall.

When suspicions of her pregnancy developed and when her relationship with Hall was eventually exposed, she and her father left for South America.

[2] In 1895, she got her first big break when Augustin Daly hired her as a supporting actress for his star player, Ada Rehan.

When the production moved to London in 1905, King Edward VII asked that she be presented to him, and they were rumoured to have had an intimate relationship.

Shortly after divorcing Goodwin, she returned to New York City and in 1908 opened her own theater, The Maxine Elliott, located on 39th Street near Broadway.

[7] According to biographer Diana Forbes-Robertson, contemporary critics were divided on whether it was "her beauty or her acting ability that attracted attention" over her career.

[9] Elliott's sister Gertrude Elliot with her husband Johnston Forbes-Robertson and their children Maxine "Blossom" Miles, Jean, Chloe and Diana lived in a wing of Hartsbourne Manor.