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By Amy Benfer

June 1, 1999 | I am Eloise. I am (almost twenty-) six. One of my friends agrees with me: after discovering our mutual love of all things Eloise, he has since refused to address me by any other name. Once, he even asked for Eloise when he called me at my mother's house. My mother, who introduced me to Eloise herself, simply handed me the phone.

I am not the only one who thinks she is Eloise. I have rivals. Apparently, Marie Brenner of Vanity Fair also believes herself to be Eloise; in her introduction to "The Absolutely Essential Eloise" she writes, "Eloise was not allowed to belong to anyone else. I truly believed that I owned her."

"Eloise" "Eloise in Paris" "The Absolutely Essential Eloise"

Exclusive ownership of Eloise was presumably the motivation behind the theft of the Eloise portrait that hung in the Plaza Hotel in the mid-'50s. Kay Thompson blamed it on rowdy debutantes. I blame it on rowdy debutantes who believed themselves to be Eloise. The most likely candidate for the beguiling Eloise is Thompson's goddaughter, with whom she lived on and off until the end of her life. If nothing else, both Liza -- whose mother Judy Garland died of a drug overdose -- and Eloise shared a fabulous surrogate mother who was much more attentive than their own.

In fact, the similarity which Liza shares with Eloise is also the one she shares with her godmother. Eloise -- with her stick-straight, ashy blond hair, pot belly and circus-mime face -- is "not yet pretty though she's already a person." Neither Liza Minnelli nor Kay Thompson were ever considered ravishing beauties. An early profile of Thompson in Radio Guide declared, rather nastily, "Ugly Ducklings Can have Beaux Too." As an actress during Hollywood's musical golden age, Thompson was never cast as the drop-dead leading lady. Her most famous film role was in the 1957 "Funny Face" in which she played fashion editor Maggie Prescott -- a spoof of Diana Vreeland -- another ugly duckling who proved that fabulousness was more important than one's face.

Kay Thompson did not intend to share Eloise with anyone. "Eloise is me," she said, "All me!" She once called up Schuyler Hooke, manager of Books of Wonder in New York City, to voice dissatisfaction with a 40th anniversary window display because it did not feature Thompson's name in its trademark marquee fashion.

"What is the title of that book in the window?" she asked.

Hooke replied, "'Eloise.'"

"That is incorrect," screamed Thompson. "The title of the book is 'Kay Thompson's Eloise'!"

We Eloise impersonators are the reason that three of the four Eloise books were out of print for more than three decades. At first bewitched by our attention, Thompson courted us with myriad Eloisiana, which we fed on voraciously. In the 1950s, the list of items for purchase (licensed by Thompson's company Eloise Ltd.) included an Eloise record, a life-size doll, clothing, Eloise French postcards, wigs, luggage and toys. You could even buy Eloise's emergency kit: a hatbox containing bubble gum, crayons, turtle food, sunglasses, soap, notepads and "Please Don't Disturb" signs from the Plaza. In the 1970s, visitors to the Plaza could find an Eloise ice cream parlor off Palm Court, and Room 934 was displayed as "Eloise's room." In return for allowing Eloise to be adopted by the Plaza, Thompson was amply compensated: She lived rent-free at the luxurious hotel for nearly 20 years.

Next page | Was Kay Thompson a jealous mother who destroyed her child?