 Thelma, a costume designer whom he met on the set of "Colonel Founder / Awake my Love" two years earlier, was originally from Broken Hill, then Adelaide, and had moved to Sydney to design the costumes for the New South Wales sesqui-centenary pageant.Max and Thelma did not have children.Afford died of cancer on 2 November 1954 at Mosman, Sydney, and was cremated.