Maxine Duxbury (Madeleine Curtis) 2000

First Regular Appearance: 3.31 (#171)  Tuesday 1st February 2000

Last Regular Appearance: 3.50 (#190)  Thursday 6th April 2000

Duration: EP: 171 - 190  |  SE: 3.31 – 3.50

Last Seen: Rightfully being thrown out on her arse by Lynda after squatting in her house and trying to steal her life.

Four years younger than her sister Lynda, Maxine grew up jealous of the attention her more appealing sister received, and well aware of how their parents had only planned to have two children, Maxine being the third born placed a strain on the Duxbury family. Maxine also brought the misfortune of causing trouble everywhere she went, and had spent her adult life so far with a succession of low-rent boyfriends whose cash she could spend, until she grew tired and set out to find the next best thing.

As Maxine always burnt out her relationships because of her overly selfish and greedy nature, she was even more jealous of Lynda who had settled with businessman husband Jerry, and despite seeing her older sister occasionally, she had never met her rich brother-in-law. Maxine doesn't even care to visit Lynda after she is shot at Wembley, an incident arranged by Jerry to remove her lover Luis Amor Rodriguez. Hearing from their mother how Lynda is suffering memory loss prompts a penniless Maxine into turning up at the Block's mansion, keen to take advantage of the situation. Jerry was grateful for Maxine's arrival, someone to keep an eye on Lynda while he was dealing with the club, and she became an important ally to him in his mission to stop Lynda leaving him.

It wasn't long before Maxine was again causing trouble for Lynda, stirring arguments between she and Jerry also involving Luis and Marilyn, plus embarrassingly chasing after players at the club. If Lynda thought her own sister would be on her side over Jerry, she was wrong, for Maxine reported back Lynda's suspicions on Jerry being involved in her shooting straight back to him. Knowing Lynda was getting closer to the truth, Jerry conspired with Maxine that Lynda was mentally unstable, and the two set about holding her prisoner in the house. On the day Luis is due to return from surgery in America, Lynda escapes the control of Jerry and Maxine, and Maxine believes she has finally got the life Lynda had.

However, when Lynda gets the proof of Jerry's involvement in the Wembley shootings, she forces him to sign the club over to her and leave for Brazil or face prison. Maxine is furious Jerry signed over his fortune i.e. the club to her sister, and retorts that she would never move to Brazil with a man thirty years older than her with more chins than a Hong Kong phone book! As Jerry made his exit alone, a shameful Maxine attempted to talk Lynda round, playing the sisters-card, but Lynda had had enough of her betrayals and threw her out once and for all.