Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Life

Eight (Jewish) Things You Didn’t Know About Eloise

Eloise, the irrepressible and obnoxious resident of New York’s famed Plaza Hotel, is currently the focus of an exhibit at the New-York Historical Society titled “Eloise at the Museum.” Many admirers of this privileged child dedicated to creative disruption are unaware that her creator, Kay Thompson, was born Catherine Louise (Kitty) Fink in St. Louis, Missouri, the daughter of a Jewish immigrant pawnbroker. Thompson assumed many roles in her life, yet her most famous creation was Eloise. Here are some facts and suggestions to ponder about Eloise’s Jewish roots.

1. Thompson’s Dad Had A Yiddish Accent

According to Thompson biographer Sam Irvin, Thompson’s father could never repress his Yiddish accent, yet the family celebrated Christmas in order to fit in. No wonder Eloise’s Christmas tree in the Plaza features a broken ornament covered by a band-aid and a glass thermometer oddly hanging from a candy cane.

2. Nose Job

Thompson had numerous plastic surgeries to correct her socially unacceptable nose, yet she identified with the unabashedly Jewish singer Fanny Brice.

3. Famous Friends

One of Thompson’s childhood friends was playwright Tennessee Williams. He worked at the old-style Friedman-Shelby shoe warehouse, an experience immortalized as torture in “The Glass Menagerie.”

4. Italian, But Not Jewish, But Still Jewish

Mr. Salomone, the Plaza’s “sweetest old manager” in two of the Eloise books, is not Jewish. He is based on the actual hotelier Alponse Salomone, who was of Italian-American heritage. However, Jewish actor Jeffrey Tambor does play him in the television movie adaptation of ”Eloise at the Plaza.“

5. Lena Dunham?

Jewish actress and activist Lena Dunham has a tattoo of Eloise on her back, a fact included in the new exhibit. Dunham has confessed her admiration for the assertive Eloise’s rule breaking and proto-feminism.

6. Jewish Humor?

Eloise’s room at the Plaza includes an eviscerated rag doll on whom she performs surgery, a spray can of liquid hair net and a gin bottle from an evening watching television with Nanny. Hilary Knight’s illustrations bring to life Thompson’s not-so-subtle attack on the sanitized version so popular in the ‘50’s. Thompson wrecked the family ideal in the same way that Eloise wrecked the tray of martinis in the Crystal Room and the thermostats in the Plaza hallways.

7. A Bit Zaftig?

Traveling to Hollywood, Eloise takes Nanny’s advice that “the one thing/you absolutely must do on a train/is eat eat eat.” We’re not sure if she got her hands on some deli.

8. Let’s Get Loud

Eloise says in one of the books that “getting bored is not allowed” even if it means making “a really loud and terrible racket,” as Thompson proved in her long and successful career, which included stints as a vocal coach to Frank Sinatra, Lena Horne and Judy Garland.

Emily Schneider is a writer and Jewish educator in New York City. She has written about children’s literature, Jewish culture and history at Tablet, Jewcy and “Family Reading” at The Hornbook.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.