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The celebrated illustrator who drew Eloise shares a few of his favorite things THE IMAGE ABOVE is a photograph of some of my close relatives and friends—including Lena Dunham, who is behind the HBO documentary about my life and work, It’s Me, Hilary: The Man Who Drew Eloise, coming out in March. We had an instantaneous connection when we met. She has a tattoo of Eloise, the children’s book character I helped create, on her back. The image in front and the little fish and frog refer to my author photo from Eloise Takes a Bawth. I actually got into the water of my East Hampton pond for it, which was horrific; it was filled with bullfrogs and fish. To the right is a portrait of Eloise and my fa

It's Me, Hilary: The Man Who Drew Eloise premieres Monday, March 23 at 9PM, only on HBO.

Every little girl thinks she is Eloise. So did Lena Dunham. And she kind of had a point. Ms. Dunham, the star and creator of “Girls,” is the narrator and an executive producer of “It’s Me, Hilary,” a short, curious HBO documentary on Monday about Hilary Knight, the illustrator of the “Eloise” books. In it, wearing a glittery Eloise wig with bow, she makes clear she has a proprietary interest in Eloise, whom she describes as her “heart’s twin.” Eloise “does what she wants when she wants it and she doesn’t brush her hair, doesn’t care that her stomach hangs over her skirt,” she says. “So there’s a lot to relate to when you are a slightly weird child.” That’s also a pretty good description of K

en you think of Eloise, skibbling around the Plaza Hotel on her spindly little legs that end in black Mary Janes, staring through enormous cat’s-eye sunglasses at Weenie, her dog that looks like a cat, or sklonking Vincent the barber in the kneecap, you’re imagining a creation dreamed up by the late force of nature Kay Thompson and illustrated by Hilary Knight, the eighty-eight-year-old star of “It’s Me, Hilary: The Man Who Drew Eloise,” a short documentary that airs tonight on HBO. Thompson, who was, among other things, a music arranger and vocal coach for M-G-M, a cabaret singer, the showstopping co-star of “Funny Face” (“Think Pink!”), and Liza Minnelli’s godmother, tended to turn heads;

The new documentary It’s Me, Hilary: The Man Who Drew Eloise is Lena Dunham’s loving ode to Eloise, the celebrated children’s books about a girl living in New York’s Plaza Hotel. When I was a little girl, I loved and looked up to many females: Melissa Joan Hart, the Olsen Twins, the Spice Girls. But more than any, I loved Eloise. And at 25, I still do. Unlike the other ladies in that litany, Eloise is not an actual human. The 6-year-old girl who wreaked havoc on New York City’s Plaza Hotel was the creation of author Kay Thompson and illustrator Hilary Knight. Yet, 60 years since her 1955 debut in Eloise: A Book For Precocious Grown-ups, Eloise has been a hero to generations of girls—and for

The childlike artist that helped create one of the best-loved children in literary history is still a kid at heart. Hilary Knight, the 88-year-old illustrator who drew Eloise to match the writings of Kay Thompson, is still an illustrator, but he’s also an oddball overseeing a fantasy world in his East Hampton home. Knight’s rise, fall and return are documented in “It’s Me, Hilary,” a new HBO film produced by Eloise fan Lena Dunham and directed by her pal, Matt Wolf. “Mentally, he’s a 10-year-old,” says Wolf, who spent about a year filming Knight in his backyard world of make believe. Sometimes Knight downs a cocktail in a full gorilla costume. Another time, his cat carried in a dead mouse, s