Eloise at 55

“The lost Bath Book,” as Knight refers to it, was doomed from the start. Thompson’s heart wasn’t really in it, and she was trying to push Eloise into the political realm. “It was right around the time of the assassination of the president,” recalls Knight. “She wanted to make it a very dark, claustrophobic book about disasters. The original concept of it was that Eloise taking a bath flooded the hotel, and the entire lobby was filled and they had boats coming in and Walter Cronkite discussing all this. I had a feeling this is never going to happen. And it didn’t. After four years we killed the book because it just wasn’t very good. Her writing wasn’t great, and neither were my drawings.”

After the bath book was shelved in 1968, Thompson attempted to completely divorce herself of the Eloise franchise, a move that permanently corrupted the pair’s relationship. “We got along famously until the very end,” says Knight. “She never wanted to do anything to promote the book, for anniversaries. I said, 'Kay, can’t we do a special drawing or something?' And she said, 'Oh no darling, the book sells itself.' Of course nothing ever does. She forgot that this was my livelihood, the royalties from the books.”

Following Thompson’s death, Eloise Takes a Bawth was finally published in 2002. Since that time, however, Knight has not had any access to or say in Eloise’s fate. “Withholding is a nice way of saying what her estate is,” he grumbles. “But Kay would not be happy with the new book, or any of the re-printings. You see, she didn’t want anything done. I know deep down that we will someday see more Eloise, and I hope I’m here to do them. I would love to see an animated movie, because live-action cannot capture how terrible she really is.”

A new live-action, feature film version of Eloise in Paris is in the works (with Uma Thurman rumored as the nanny), though Knight says he knows nothing about it, and “is completely out of that loop."

And while Knight is thrilled Eloise is being reimagined for a new generation, he can’t see himself digitizing his characters or bringing them culturally up to date. “You’d never see Eloise with a cellphone,” he jokes. “Not in my lifetime. The worst thing she could do would be watch television. She is too interested in what’s going on in the outside world. As Kay was, and as I am.”

Rachel Syme is culture editor of The Daily Beast.

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