Jennifer Helene Maxwell (September 3, 1941^{[citation needed]} – June 10, 1981) was an American film and television actress, probably best remembered for her role in the 1961 Elvis Presley musicale film Blue Hawaii.

Maxwell was the daughter of a construction worker from Norway (the original family name of Moksvold was changed when the family emigrated to the United States a decade before in 1949), and was also speculated to be a distant relative of Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962). This was disputed by Buddy Moorehouse, her cousin's son, who claimed that it was "entirely untrue" and merely a falsehood spread to bolster her career.

Stage and film director Vincente Minnelli (1903–1986), saw young Maxwell when she was 16 years old and a high school student in Brooklyn, New York. He had her do a screen test to use her in one of his films then in production, possibly to portray Frank Sinatra's character Dave Hirsch's niece Dawn Hirsch," daughter of his older brother Frank, later played by Betty Lou Keim (1938–2010), who got the role, in Some Came Running (released December 1958).

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).

In addition to this she appeared in several television shows beginning in 1959, extending into the 1960s, including Father Knows Best (1959), The Twilight Zone (S-2 E-22, episode "Long Distance Call", 1961), Route 66 (1961), Ichabod and Me (1962), The Joey Bishop Show (1962), 77 Sunset Strip (1963), Wagon Train, and My Three Sons (1967).

On April 17, 1959, the 18-year-old Maxwell married 24-year-old Paul W. Rapp, an assistant director. After separating two and half years later, in December 1961, they had a very public divorce and custody battle over their young son Brian, with Maxwell winning custody after testifying about Rapp's "extremely possessive and overly jealous" nature. The divorce was granted January 29, 1963.

Seven years later, she married Ervin M. Roeder, a successful attorney who was 21 years her senior, on February 15, 1970 in Los Angeles.