Drawings From the Heart

It is easy to love, hate and envy Eloise. For one thing, she never ages. She was 6 years old in 1955, when Hilary Knight drew her with spindly legs, flyaway hair and an impish smirk, and although by rights she should be 50, Eloise will always be 6.

She lives in the Plaza Hotel in New York, where she gets to order room service whenever she wants, say “Charge it please and thank you very much,” and never see a bill. Eloise skibbles around the Plaza, being rawther devilish sometimes, but she’s a very lucky girl, because no matter how badly she behaves, she is never, ever punished.

Unless you consider hardly ever seeing your mother (and having to make do with Nanny, a turtle and a dog that looks like a cat) a punishment.

Eloise was only a voice and an attitude until her creator, the late Kay Thompson, decided she should be introduced to the world in a book and asked Knight to draw her.

The 73-year-old illustrator was in Los Angeles last week, signing copies of “The Absolutely Essential Eloise,” a new edition of the beloved book that includes an Eloise scrapbook full of previously unseen photos and drawings from Knight’s files.

As usual when Knight goes out among Eloise fans, those waiting for his signature at the Every Picture Tells a Story gallery on Beverly Boulevard included fans of all ages. After all, said Knight, “Eloise” was never meant to be a children’s book. (The front page even says: “A book for precocious grown ups.”)

The story of the rambunctious poor little rich girl in the pleated black skirt and puff-sleeved white blouse was an instant hit, and has sold more than two million copies since its debut.

Eloise began as a funny child’s voice that Thompson would use to entertain friends. “You really should write this down,” they would say. Although she’d never written a book before “Eloise,” Thompson was constantly reinventing herself. In the 1930s and ‘40s, she’d been a music arranger, nightclub performer, actress and glamorous woman-about-town.

When Knight and Thompson were introduced by a mutual friend in 1953, he was the 27-year-old son of artists, and a promising illustrator. She was in her 50s.

“She was the most extraordinary woman,” he said. “From the minute I met her, I was mesmerized, as everyone else was. We did everything in collaboration, but she felt she knew more than I did, because she had been around longer. And, in a way, she did.”

The first book was quickly followed by “Eloise in Paris” (in 1957), “Eloise at Christmastime” (1958) and “Eloise in Moscow” (1959). Thompson didn’t think any of the sequels lived up to the original. And because she controlled the copyright, she had the power to withdraw the books, and did. When she died last year, at age 90-something, the rights passed back to her estate, which gave them back to the publisher.

The Paris book and the Christmas story were reissued this year. “Eloise in Moscow” will be available in March.

“I didn’t agree that the later books were not up to the first one,” Knight said. “But she had the power to withdraw them, and as a result, it created a demand.”

Thompson and Knight traveled to Paris and Moscow together to work on the books. They’d skidder around the city all day, then come back to their hotel, where Thompson would write Eloise dialogue and Knight would sketch what he’d seen.

Although producers regularly contacted Thompson and Knight over the years to discuss an Eloise movie, Thompson wasn’t interested and seemed to take pleasure in torturing her Hollywood suitors. Now, producer Denise DeNovi (“Edward Scissorhands”) is working on an Eloise film.

Knight thinks the character has endured because of her underlying pathos.

“There’s a definite, slightly painful loss in Eloise,” he said. “Any child reading it certainly sees the missing element, and plenty of kids live with that, with having a friend or a relative who takes care of them because the parent isn’t there. Eloise is an independent--someone who, because of the lack of a mother in her life, seeks out her own entertainment and has the imagination to do it.”

She’s certainly not troubled by the round little tummy that protrudes above her skirt. “I had a stomach like that when I was a little boy,” Knight said. “A lot of the physical things you put into a character are parts of yourself. Now I have that stomach again, but that comes from eating Starbucks Ice Cream.” He smiled, with the sort of self-satisfied brio that could rule, or even hold hostage, the Plaza.