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Kay Thompson
 Kay Thompson (1909-1998) was a singer, dancer, vocal arranger, and coach of many MGM musicals in the 1940s. The Eloise character grew out of the voice of a precocious six-year-old that Miss Thompson put on to amuse her friends. Collaborating with Hilary Knight on what was an immediate best-seller, Kay Thompson became a literary sensation when ELOISE was published in 1955. The book has sold more than two million copies to date. Kay Thompson and Hilary Knight created three more Eloise books, ELOISE IN PARIS, ELOISE AT CHRISTMASTIME, and ELOISE IN MOSCOW, and began work on a fourth, ELOISE TAKES A BAWTH, which formed the basis for this new book.
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Hilary Knight
 Hilary Knight, son of artist-writers Clayton Knight and Katherine Sturges, was born in Hempstead, Long Island and grew up in the town of Roslyn. When he was six the family moved to Manhattan where he has lived ever since. In the past twenty years he has maintained an apartment in the center of New York City which doubles as his studio and houses his collection of books, programs, and recordings of theatre and film music. His first published work appeared in Mademoiselle magazine in 1952, followed by drawings in House and Garden, Good Housekeeping, and Gourmet magazines. This led to a meeting with Kay Thompson, the singer/vocal arranger who was then apperaring in her own night club act at the Plaza Hotel. She had invented a precocious hotel child named Eloise who existed only as a telephone voice Miss Thompson used to entertain her friends. With the help of Mr. Knight they transformed the voice into words and pictures and their first book ELOISE was published in 1955, which soon became a bestseller. Mr. Knight has illustrated over fifty books, nine of which he also wrote. Besides books, his work has included note and greeting cards, children's fashion advertisings, illustrations for Cricket magazine, record album covers and posters for the Broadway musicals Half A Sixpence, Hallelujah Baby!, No, No Nanette, Irene, and Gypsy- all of which were included in a one-man show at Triton Gallery in New York City in 1974.
Photo © Mary Harty and Peter DeRosa
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• Hilary Knight Q&A
Mart Crowley
Mart Crowley is the groundbreaking playwright of The Boys in the Band as well as an award-winning scriptwriter for TV and film. He collaborated with Kay Thompson on The Fox and the Fig when he lived across the street from her in Rome in 1962. Mart Crowley lives and works in Los Angeles, California. A friend of both Kay Thompson and Hilary Knight who was in contact with the author-illustrator during the time ELOISE TAKES A BAWTH was being created, has completed Thompson's text.
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