美国国家公共电台 NPR 'Eloise At The Museum' Tells The Story Behind The Beloved Mischief-Maker

KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:

A new exhibition at the New-York Historical Society tells the story behind the "Eloise" children's books. For one, author Kay Thompson was not a fan of children. Thompson died in 1998. The illustrator of the books, Hilary Knight 1, is 90 years old. Jeff Lunden talked to Knight, the curator of the exhibit and a very dedicated 2 fan.

JEFF LUNDEN, BYLINE 3: For generations of children, Eloise is a favorite.

ANNIE CLARK: I'm Eloise. I'm 6. I'm a city child. I live in the Plaza 4.

LUNDEN: I met 10-year-old Annie Clark at the Plaza Hotel. She was dressed like Eloise.

ANNIE: I think that I do kind of relate to her because I can be mischievous 5 sometimes, but not always like her.

LUNDEN: Eloise was the brainchild of the multi-talented Kay Thompson, who at various points in her career was a radio personality, a vocal 6 arranger at MGM and a popular cabaret performer.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HELLO, HELLO")

KAY THOMPSON: (Singing) Hello, hello. Hello...

LUNDEN: Thompson liked to amuse her friends with the voice of a little girl called Eloise. One of those friends thought the character might make a good children's book and introduced Thompson to a young artist named Hilary Knight. They hit it off.

HILARY KNIGHT: We would get our ideas and we would collectively paste them together. You know, she would talk to me and I would draw them.

LUNDEN: Eloise has an absent mother, a close relationship with her nanny, her dog Wienie, her turtle Skipperdee and the staff of the Plaza Hotel, where she skibbles (ph) about and makes a lot of mischief 7. Jane Curley, the exhibition's curator, says Eloise became part of the cultural zeitgeist.

JANE CURLEY: She landed at the Plaza in 1955 in the midst of the staid Eisenhower era, when role models for women were June Cleaver 8 and Donna Reed. And all of a sudden, here's this wild, irrepressible 6-year-old rushing around, barging into things, getting into trouble. And she struck a chord.

LUNDEN: The exhibition features drawings and drafts, as well as ephemera to illustrate 9 what a popular phenomenon Eloise became - toys, dolls, even a song Kay Thompson wrote and performed.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ELOISE")

UNIDENTIFIED SINGERS: (Singing) Who is the little girl who lives at the Plaza in New York?

THOMPSON: That's me, Eloise. I'm 6. I live on the top floor.

UNIDENTIFIED SINGERS: (Singing) Who is the little girl...

LUNDEN: Kay Thompson never thought of Eloise as a children's book. Hilary Knight points out its subtitle 10 is "A Book For Precocious 11 Grownups, About A Little Girl Who Lives At The Plaza Hotel."

KNIGHT: To her dying day she said it was not a child's book. It offended her.

CURLEY: She didn't like children very much. And she would waltz into Doubleday's and pick up stacks of her books out of the juvenile 12 section and plunk them down in the grown-up section and then walk out.

LUNDEN: The exhibition's centerpiece is a large portrait of Eloise that Hilary Knight painted for Kay Thompson's birthday.

CURLEY: There's Eloise standing 13 there, looking like English royalty 14.

LUNDEN: Curator Jane Curley says the painting hasn't been displayed for 57 years. Thompson had donated it to the Plaza where it hung in the lobby, but it was stolen on the night of the Junior League ball in 1960.

CURLEY: Walter Cronkite announced on national TV, Eloise kidnapped from the Plaza Hotel. Kay offered a reward. There was a great amount of excitement. But the portrait failed to show up.

LUNDEN: Two years later, Hilary Knight got an anonymous 15 phone call telling him the portrait was in a dumpster on the East Side. He picked up the damaged painting and put it in storage, but the mystery remains 16. Who took it?

CURLEY: I strongly suspect that this was Kay Thompson's best stunt 17 ever. She was tired of Eloise. It was 1960. She'd taken the three books out of publication and only left the original book in publication. So to have the portrait disappear was a great exit.

LUNDEN: Kay Thompson was difficult and controlling. She grew addicted 18 to drugs and was supported by her goddaughter, Liza Minnelli, for the last 20 years of her life. But Hilary Knight says she never lost her brilliant wit. At the end of the exhibition is a picture Knight drew of Kay Thompson shortly before her death. It says, I am Eloise, with Thompson knocking the little girl off a chair.

KNIGHT: She did feel that way. And she did knock her off the chair.

LUNDEN: "Eloise At The Museum" will be on display through October. For NPR News, I'm Jeff Lunden in New York.

(SOUNDBITE OF DEEP EAST MUSIC'S "COTTON WOOL")