Maxine Arnold is my oldest and dearest friend and was my agent for 25 years in Hollywood. She was an actor who had an epiphany: she could be an agent and get to know more actors than just the ones she worked with. Her agency represented Black, Latinx and Italian actors, getting work for all of us. She was hard to get on the phone—that’s how busy she was. I couldn’t have made a living without her.
Now she’s 89 years old and living in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, sometimes called “the city of fallen women” because it’s so hard to stay upright walking on its 17th-century cobblestone streets. In fact, she’s had a couple of bad falls lately and needs rehabilitation to be able to walk up the stairs to her second-floor apartment.
Most recently, last month while walking her dog, she fell and broke her femur, necessitating a costly surgery to put her back together again. I’d post a picture of the scar, but you don’t want to see it.
Since then, she has been recovering at Sofy Cares, an assisted living facility in San Miguel, but only by the grace of the Unitarian Universalist Church congregation, who are funding one month of care ($2,500–$3,000 USD). Maxine does not have the funds to stay there any longer, and next week she must return to her apartment (even though right now she’s not able to walk a flight of stairs). She needs our help!
This fundraiser will enable Maxine to hire the 24-hour care that she needs for recovery over the course of two to three months. (Thank God she’s in Mexico where it’s at least somewhat more affordable than in the States.)
I feel terrible because I’m not able to care for her directly so I’m hoping to raise funds for her as a gift that will make a real difference. She’s having a birthday in July. It would be great if she had the money to get better and to continue to live the way she deserves.
