Maxine Sneed: Tommy Chong’s First Wife – The Unveiled Story of Canadian Editor and Star’s Mom

Maxine Sneed is a Canadian editor and journalist, best known as the first wife of comedian and actor Tommy Chong. They were married from 1960 to 1970 and have two daughters together: actress Rae Dawn Chong and international model Robbi Chong. Despite her connection to one of comedy’s biggest names, Maxine has spent decades living outside the spotlight, never giving interviews and never seeking public attention.

Who Is Maxine Sneed? (Quick Facts)

Early Life and Heritage

Canadian Roots

Maxine Sneed was born in Canada in the early 1940s. Some online sources cite September 23, 1940, as her date of birth, but no primary source has confirmed this. What is known is that she grew up in Canada and is of mixed heritage — Afro-Canadian and Cherokee descent. Her biracial background is corroborated by multiple sources, including the Wikipedia entry for her daughter Robbi Chong, which notes both of Robbi’s parents were biracial.

Canada’s Black communities in the 1940s and ’50s were small but close, concentrated in cities like Halifax, Montreal, Toronto, and parts of Alberta. Maxine grew up during a time when Black Canadian cultural institutions were expanding — new churches, community organizations, and media outlets were taking shape. She’d eventually find her way into publishing through that world.

Career at Black Radio Magazine

Before and during her marriage to Tommy Chong, Maxine Sneed worked as an editor at Black Radio Magazine, a publication that covered the African-American and African-Canadian music and broadcasting industries. The role put her at the intersection of media and culture during a transformative period — the 1960s saw an explosion of Black radio stations across North America, and publications like Black Radio Magazine played a role in documenting and shaping that growth.

Black radio was big in the 1960s. Stations like WDIA in Memphis and WVON in Chicago were breaking new music and giving voice to Black communities across North America. A publication covering that industry would have been right in the middle of the era’s biggest cultural shifts — Civil Rights, Motown, the rise of soul music.

No interviews or bylines from Maxine’s time at the magazine have surfaced, and the publication itself has little independent documentation online. But the role is consistently mentioned across all sources about her. It’s one of the few concrete professional details we have.

Marriage to Tommy Chong (1960–1970)

How They Met

Maxine Sneed and Tommy Chong met in Canada during the late 1950s. Tommy, born on May 24, 1938, in Edmonton, Alberta, was a young musician at the time, playing guitar in various R&B and Motown-influenced bands around Calgary and Vancouver. Details about the exact circumstances of their meeting have never been shared publicly by either party. They married in 1960, when Tommy was 21 and Maxine was around 19 or 20.

Their marriage was interracial from multiple angles — Tommy is of Chinese and Scotch-Irish descent, while Maxine is of African and Cherokee heritage. In 1960s Canada, interracial marriages were legal but still socially uncommon, particularly in smaller cities and towns outside of major urban centers. The couple’s union reflected the more progressive cultural circles they moved in, largely connected to the music scene in western Canada.

Life Together in the 1960s

The 1960s were a formative decade for both of them. Their first daughter, Rae Dawn Chong, was born on February 28, 1961, in Edmonton, Alberta. Their second daughter, Robbi Lynn Chong, followed on May 28, 1965, in Vancouver, British Columbia.

During this period, Tommy Chong was still primarily a musician, not yet the comedy icon he would become. He played in a band called Bobby Taylor & the Vancouvers, which was signed to Motown Records in 1967. The group is notable for introducing The Jackson 5 to Motown — a footnote in music history that ties back to Tommy’s pre-comedy career. Tommy also ran a nightclub in Vancouver called Shanghai Junk, where he began experimenting with comedy and improvisational sketches. Those late-night experiments at the club were the seeds of what would become Cheech & Chong.

While Tommy’s career was pulling him deeper into the entertainment world, Maxine was raising their two young daughters and working in publishing. The couple’s life during this decade straddled two worlds: the domestic stability of a young family and the unpredictable orbit of the music and nightclub industries. Similar dynamics have played out in the marriages of many entertainers’ spouses — Marcy Wudarski, first wife of James Gandolfini, experienced a comparable balancing act between family life and her husband’s rising fame.

Divorce in 1970

Maxine and Tommy Chong divorced in 1970, ending roughly ten years of marriage. The split has been widely attributed to Tommy’s infidelity. By the late 1960s, Tommy was spending more time in the entertainment world, performing at clubs, touring, and building his comedy career. Around 1969, he partnered with Cheech Marin to form the comedy duo Cheech & Chong. The demands and lifestyle of a touring comedy act, combined with the temptations that came with growing fame, took a toll on the marriage.

Tommy has been open in interviews over the years about his personal failings during this period, though he has rarely spoken about Maxine directly. After the divorce, Maxine took primary responsibility for raising Rae Dawn and Robbi, largely out of the public eye.

The pattern of a first wife being left behind as a husband’s fame skyrockets is unfortunately common in entertainment. Leslie Kotkin, the ex-wife of public intellectual Cornel West, and Dana Lee Burgio, ex-wife of professional wrestler Scott Hall, both navigated similar situations — building independent lives after high-profile divorces while raising children largely on their own.

Children: Rae Dawn Chong and Robbi Chong

Both of Maxine’s daughters went into entertainment. Rae Dawn became an actress; Robbi became an international model. Their mixed heritage — African, Cherokee, Chinese, Scottish-Irish — has been part of how both women talk about themselves publicly.

Rae Dawn Chong — Actress and Filmmaker

Rae Dawn Chong is Maxine’s elder daughter, born February 28, 1961, in Edmonton. She was raised by Tommy and Maxine during their marriage, and after the divorce, primarily by Maxine.

A note on parentage: There is conflicting information in public sources about whether Maxine Sneed is Rae Dawn’s biological mother. Encyclopedia.com lists Maxine as her birth mother. However, other sources, including some biographical databases, state that Rae Dawn’s biological mother was a woman named Gail Toolson and that Maxine adopted her. Neither Rae Dawn nor her parents have clarified the matter publicly in any verifiable interview. What is clear is that Maxine raised Rae Dawn from infancy and is her mother in every practical sense.

Rae Dawn broke into film young. Her first major role came in the 1981 prehistoric drama Quest for Fire, directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud. The film required its actors to communicate almost entirely through body language and invented languages, and Rae Dawn’s raw, physical performance earned her a Genie Award — Canada’s equivalent of the Oscar at the time. From there, her career took off quickly:

• The Color Purple (1985) — Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of Alice Walker’s novel, where Rae Dawn played Squeak
• Commando (1985) — the Arnold Schwarzenegger action film, where she played Cindy, the reluctant sidekick who gets dragged into the mayhem
• Soul Man (1986) — a controversial comedy about race in America
• Tales from the Darkside: The Movie (1990) and dozens of other film and television credits through the 1990s and 2000s

Rae Dawn has been married three times: to stockbroker Owen Baylis (1982, brief), to actor C. Thomas Howell (1989–1990), and once more after that. She has a son named Morgan.

In more recent years, Rae Dawn has been candid in interviews about growing up biracial in the entertainment industry, her complicated relationship with her father, and the challenges of being a woman of color in Hollywood during the 1980s. Her willingness to speak openly stands in stark contrast to her mother’s complete avoidance of public life.

Robbi Chong — Model and Actress

Robbi Lynn Chong was born May 28, 1965, in Vancouver, British Columbia. She pursued a career in modeling and became internationally recognized, signing with Click Modeling Agency in New York, one of the top agencies of the era.

In the early 1980s, Robbi moved to Paris, where she modeled from 1983 to 1988 — a five-year stretch during the golden age of supermodels. She worked for major fashion houses and appeared in international publications. Her look — mixed African, Cherokee, Chinese, and European heritage — set her apart in an industry that was only starting to feature non-white models with any regularity. Five years working in Paris during the ’80s is a solid run by any standard.

Beyond modeling, Robbi also studied acting and has taken on various roles over the years, though her acting career has been less prominent than her sister’s. Like her mother, she has largely stayed out of tabloid culture and maintained a relatively private personal life.

Tommy Chong’s Life After Maxine

Marriage to Shelby Chong

After his divorce from Maxine, Tommy Chong married Shelby Fiddis in 1975. Shelby, who took the name Shelby Chong, is a comedian and actress in her own right. She appeared in several Cheech & Chong films and has been Tommy’s partner in both life and career for over five decades. Their marriage has lasted far longer than his first, and Shelby has been by his side through the highest and lowest points of his career — from the peak of Cheech & Chong’s fame to his federal prison sentence and subsequent comeback.

Tommy’s career after Maxine reads like a comedy hall of fame resume. With Cheech Marin, he released a string of hit comedy albums, winning a Grammy Award in 1973 for Los Cochinos. Their first film, Up in Smoke (1978), became a cult classic and the highest-grossing comedy of its year. They made seven films together before splitting as a duo in the mid-1980s.

Tommy found a new generation of fans playing Leo, the burned-out hippie, on That ’70s Show from 1998 to 2006. The role became iconic and cemented his place in pop culture for younger audiences who had never seen a Cheech & Chong film.

In 2003, Tommy was sentenced to nine months in federal prison on drug paraphernalia charges related to his son Paris’s company, which sold bongs online. The case was widely seen as politically motivated — Tommy was the only individual charged in what was a broad federal operation targeting paraphernalia sellers. He served his time at a minimum-security facility in Taft, California, and later wrote about the experience.

Tommy’s Extended Family

Tommy Chong has six children in total from his various relationships, making for a large and blended family:

• Rae Dawn Chong (b. 1961) — raised by Tommy and Maxine
• Robbi Chong (b. 1965) — daughter with Maxine
• Precious Chong (b. 1968) — actress, comedian, and writer
• Marcus Chong (adopted) — actor best known for playing Tank in The Matrix (1999)
• Paris Chong (b. 1974) — son with Shelby Chong
• Gilbran Chong (b. 1981) — youngest son, with Shelby Chong

It’s a big, blended family. Tommy has talked about his kids over the years, and most of them ended up in entertainment one way or another. The Chong family’s mixed background — Chinese, Scottish-Irish, African, Cherokee — comes up often in how the children talk about themselves and each other.

Where Is Maxine Sneed Today?

Maxine Sneed has maintained an extraordinarily private life since her divorce from Tommy Chong in 1970. She is not on any social media platforms. She does not attend public events or industry gatherings. She has not given interviews to media outlets.

Some sources say she lives in the Los Angeles area, but that’s not confirmed. Even when she was married to Tommy, she wasn’t the type to show up at premieres or do magazine spreads. After the divorce, she disappeared from public life entirely.

Over fifty years later, she still hasn’t given an interview. No tell-all book. No reality show. No social media. She’s never publicly criticized Tommy Chong or tried to capitalize on her daughters’ fame. In an era where being a celebrity ex-wife is practically its own career path, that’s unusual.

Heather Helm, Matthew Lillard’s wife, takes a similar approach — family first, cameras never.

Maxine Sneed Age and Personal Details

Pinning down Maxine Sneed’s exact age requires a caveat. Multiple online sources list her birth date as September 23, 1940. If accurate, she would be 85 years old as of early 2026. However, no primary source — birth record, interview, or official document — has been produced to verify this date.

What can be reasonably estimated is that she was born in the early 1940s, based on the timeline of her marriage in 1960 and her daughters’ births in 1961 and 1965. This would place her in her mid-80s today.

Other known personal details are sparse:

• Full name: Maxine Sneed (maiden name; she did not publicly use “Chong” after the divorce)
• Nationality: Canadian
• Ethnicity: Afro-Canadian and Cherokee (Native American) descent
• Profession: Editor and journalist (Black Radio Magazine)
• Religion: Not publicly known
• Net worth: Not reliably estimated — figures published on celebrity net worth aggregator sites are speculative and should not be taken as fact

Frequently Asked Questions

How old is Maxine Sneed?

Maxine Sneed is approximately 85 years old as of 2026, based on widely cited reports placing her birth year around 1940. Her exact date of birth has not been confirmed by a primary source. Some websites list September 23, 1940, but this remains unverified.

Is Maxine Sneed still alive?

There are no reports of Maxine Sneed’s death, and she is believed to be alive as of 2026. However, because she lives an entirely private life with no social media presence or public appearances, confirmed updates about her current status are rare.

Who are Maxine Sneed’s daughters?

Maxine Sneed has two daughters: Rae Dawn Chong, born in 1961, who became a successful actress known for films like Quest for Fire, The Color Purple, and Commando; and Robbi Chong, born in 1965, who had an international modeling career based in Paris during the 1980s. Both daughters were raised primarily by Maxine after her divorce from Tommy Chong in 1970.

Why did Tommy Chong and Maxine Sneed divorce?

Tommy Chong and Maxine Sneed divorced in 1970 after approximately ten years of marriage. The divorce has been widely attributed to Tommy Chong’s infidelity. By the late 1960s, Tommy was increasingly involved in the entertainment industry — he formed the comedy duo Cheech & Chong with Cheech Marin around 1969 — and the lifestyle that came with performing and touring contributed to the breakdown of their marriage.