Eve Babitz

Eve Babitz (May 13, 1943 – December 17, 2021) was an American author and visual artist best known for her semi-fictionalized memoirs and her involvement in the cultural milieu of Los Angeles in the 1970s.

Early life and education Babitz was born in Hollywood, California, the daughter of Mae Babitz (1911-2003) (baptized as Lily May Josephine Laviolette Her father was of Russian Jewish descent and her mother had Cajun (French) ancestry. She had one sister, Mirandi. When Mirandi was eight months old, and Eve was three, Eve was so jealous that she set Mirandi's crib on fire, and Mirandi had to have plastic surgery on her hand. Babitz grew up near Hollywood and Vine. Family picnic guests included Greta Garbo and Charlie Chaplin.

When Eve was 18, her father lost his contract with 20th Century Fox. Igor Stravinsky wrote a letter, which led to Sol Babitz getting a Fulbright scholarship to study Bach in Germany and a Ford Foundation fellowship. - Eve Babitz

In 1963, she came to public notice through Julian Wasser's photographs (at least 25 ) for Time Magazine, of the artist Marcel Duchamp on the occasion of a retrospective at the Pasadena Art Museum, which featured a nude, 20-year-old Babitz playing chess with Duchamp at the Pasadena Art Museum. Babitz was having an affair at the time with Walter Hopps, the show's curator. The photographs are described by the Smithsonian Archives of American Art as being "among the key documentary images of American modern art".

After failing to get her first novel, Travel Broadens, published, Babitz designed album covers before finding appreciation as a talented chronicler of L.A. sleaze.

From 1966 to 1967, she lived in New York City, where she worked as a publicist

In New York Babitz saw the art of Joseph Cornell, and began creating collages. Linda Ronstadt (Heart Like a Wheel), and The Byrds, and illustrations for the Los Angeles Times.

In summer 1978, Babitz was a staff writer for Michael O'Donoghue and his three late-night special project in association with Lorne Michaels, for The War of the Insect Gods and Mr. Mike's Mondo Video.

Her articles and short stories appeared in Ms., and Cosmopolitan. She was the author of several books including Eve's Hollywood, Slow Days, Fast Company, Sex and Rage, Two By Two, L.A. Woman, and Black Swans. Transitioning to her particular blend of fiction and memoir beginning with Eve's Hollywood, Babitz's writing of this period is marked by the cultural scene of Los Angeles during that time, with numerous references to and interactions with the artists, musicians, writers, actors, and sundry other iconic figures that made up the scene in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. Novelists Joseph Heller and Bret Easton Ellis were fans of her work, with the latter writing, "In every book she writes, Babitz’s enthusiasm for L.A. and its subcultures is fully displayed."

“She’s known as ‘The Dowager Groupie.’” much of the press about Babitz emphasized her various romantic associations with famous men. These include singer/poet Jim Morrison, artists (and brothers) Ed Ruscha and Paul Ruscha, the museum curator Walter Hopps, the comedian and writer Steve Martin, the actor Harrison Ford, and the writer Dan Wakefield, among others. Reviewing this biography for The Nation, journalist Marie Solis wrote, "Babitz didn’t live a life free from patriarchy, but modern-day readers might surmise that she found a way to outsmart it. Despite her proximity as a Hollywood insider to the powerhouses of male celebrity, she rarely succumbed to their charms; instead, she made everyone play by her own rules."

In 1997, Babitz was severely injured while in her car when she accidentally dropped a lit match onto a gauze skirt, which ignited and melted her pantyhose beneath it. While her lower legs were protected by the sheepskin Ugg boots she was wearing, the accident caused life-threatening third-degree burns to over half of her body.

Resurgence Babitz enjoyed a renaissance from 2010 due in part to the reissuing of much of her work by publishers including New York Review Books, Simon & Schuster and Counterpoint Press. In 2019, New York Review Books published I Used to Be Charming, a previously uncollected selection of her essays.

The New York Public Library convened a 2016 panel on "The Eve Effect" that included actress Zosia Mamet and New Yorker writer Jia Tolentino.

In 2022, the Huntington Library in California announced that it had acquired Babitz's personal archive, which includes drafts, journals, photographs, and letters spanning 1943 to 2011.

Published works

Fiction & Non-Fiction Publisher information relates to first publication only. Some of the books have been reissued. Eve's Hollywood (1974) New York, NY: Delacorte Press/S. Lawrence. OCLC 647012057 Slow Days, Fast Company: The World, The Flesh, and L.A. (1977) New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf. Sex and Rage: Advice to Young Ladies Eager for a Good Time (1979) New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf. OCLC 1001915515 L.A. Woman (1982) New York, NY: Linden Press/Simon & Schuster. OCLC 8110896 Black Swans: Stories (1993) New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf/Random House. OCLC 27067318 Two by Two: Tango, Two-step, and the L.A. Night (1999). New York, NY: Simon & Schuster. OCLC 41641459 I Used to Be Charming: The Rest of Eve Babitz (2019). New York, NY: New York Review of Books OCLC 1100441110

Non-Fiction Fiorucci, The Book (1980) New York, NY: Harlin Quist/Dial/Delacorte. OCLC 900307237

Selected essays Roll Over Elvis: The Second Coming of Jim Morrison. Esquire, March 1991

Personal life Babitz had relationships with Edward Ruscha, J. D. Souther, Ahmet Ertegun, among others. - Kevin Dettmar

Babitz said "Popsicle Toes" to Michael Franks when they were in bed together and her feet were cold.