Born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky,[2] Maxwell-Conover was the daughter of Reverend Dan Ryan,[1] an Episcopal[2] or Methodist minister.

[3] When she was a child, Maxwell-Conover desire to be an actress was so strong that she performed on a stump to an audience of chickens and ducks on her uncle's property.

A personal visit with the author and manager of The Purple Lady, which was then being presented, led to her portraying Peggy Proudfoot in that play a few weeks later.

He described her as "an actress of unusual distinction in appearance and manner, dresses exquisitely, and plays with great naturalness and simplicity a role somewhat indefinitely outlined by the dramatist."

To-Day, a three-act play given at the 48th Street Theatre in October 1913, concentrates on the "worship of money" in the United States.

The Maxine Elliott Theatre hosted a comedy by Salisbury Field entitled The Rented Earl in February 1915.

Lawrence D'Orsay, Maxwell-Conover, and Evelyn Carter were among the actors in a show which was presented twice daily except for Sunday.

The farce tells about a group of social climbers who try to persuade an English nobleman to assist them in their activities.

In April 1915 Conover-Maxwell was in a production of The Natural Law by Charles Sumner at the Republic Theatre, at 209 West 42nd Street, in midtown Manhattan.

John Cort had recently added the York to his chain of playhouses which offered Broadway attractions to audiences at "popular" prices.

Emily Stevens was the leading lady in a Broadhurst Theatre production of The Madonna of the Future, which premiered in late January 1918.

A critic was complimentary of the play's two sets which were representative of what was then a new art of "residential decoration" being employed on Broadway.

In 1928 she acted the role of the mother in Your Uncle Dudley while playing in a society comedy called The Last of Mrs. Cheney.

Her later film appearances include Gallant Lady (1934), The Mighty Barnum (1934), Mississippi (1935), and Free and Easy (1941).