![]() ![]() A classic Hotel Child who has spurned the role of Waif for that of Trickster, she’s all alone in the world except for her nanny, making endless mischief throughout the Plaza and speaking to us in an exaggerated but rapid drawl, like an Upper-East-Side matron on speed, her words presented to us on the page as antic free verse: “If there is an Exit sign I always have to go into it because there/might be a mattress in there and I can lie down on it and get some/rest so I can carry on for Lord’s sake/Oh my Lord I am absolutely so busy I don’t know how I can possibly/get everything done.” When they combined their efforts, the Eloise we know emerged. Hilary Knight was a young illustrator just getting started in books and theater posters in New York when a mutual friend introduced him to Thompson, whose “Eloise” character had become a staple of her song-and-patter nightclub act in the early 1950s. She was also a behind-the-scenes force for years as a voice coach (for Judy Garland and Frank Sinatra, among others) and vocal music arranger in Hollywood. Thompson (1909–1998) was a musician, singer, and comedian, most widely remembered for her brassy, bossy turn as a magazine editor in the film Funny Face (“ Think Pink!”). ![]() ![]() Collection of Hilary Knight/©Kay ThompsonĮloise, the children’s literature star-she of the Plaza, Paris, and Moscow-was born of Kay Thompson, not otherwise an author. ![]()
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