Susan Kay (born 1952) is a British writer, the author of two award-winning novels: Legacy and Phantom.
Kay was born on 1952 in Manchester, England. She worked as a primary school teacher until leaving to bring up a family, and now lives with her husband and two children in Cheshire.
Her first novel was Legacy, about the life of Queen Elizabeth I and won a Georgette Heyer Historical Novel Prize and a Betty Trask Award in 1985.
Her second novel was Phantom, which expands upon the history of Erik, the hideous, brilliant character from Gaston Leroux's The Phantom of the Opera, in an episodic format of seven chapters from different characters' points of view – first Erik's mother, immediately revolted by her own son; then Erik as a boy being exhibited as a circus freak; then Giovanni, a character of Kay's creation, who takes him in; then Nadir, known in Leroux's novel as the Persian, who is greatly expanded upon and gives an account of Erik in the bloodiest days of his life; then Erik, describing how he settled into his role as Phantom of the Opera; then a back-and-forth narrative between Erik and Christine Daae, whom he loves obsessively; and lastly, Raoul de Chagny, Erik's rival, giving the denouement. She did not travel to Iran to research the novel, although she did research in person at the Paris Opera House. The novel won the Romantic Novel of the Year Award by the Romantic Novelists' Association in 1991.
Kay Thompson (born Catherine Louise Fink; November 9, 1909 – July 2, 1998) was an American author, composer, musician, actress and singer. She is best known as the creator of the Eloise children's books.
Thompson was born Catherine Louise Fink in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1909, the second of the four children of Leo George Fink (1874–1939), an Austrian-born pawnbroker and jeweler, of at least partial Jewish descent, and his wife, Harriet Adelaide "Hattie" Tetrick (born August 6, ca. 1886 – December 26, 1954), a Christian. Thompson's parents were married on November 29, 1905, in East St. Louis, St. Clair County, Illinois.
Thompson's siblings were: Blanche Margaret Fink, Mrs. Hurd (born January 28, 1907 – died May 31, 2002); Leo George "Bud" Fink, Jr. (born March 20, 1911 – died June 10, 1952), and Marian Antoinette Fink, Mrs. Doenges (born August 20, 1912 – died January 4, 1960).
Thompson began her career in the 1930s as a singer and choral director for radio. Her first big break was as a regular singer on the Bing Crosby-Woodbury Show Bing Crosby Entertains (CBS, 1933–34). This led to a regular spot on The Fred Waring-Ford Dealers Show (NBC, 1934–35) and then, with conductor Lennie Hayton, she co-founded The Lucky Strike Hit Parade (CBS, 1935) where she met (and later married) trombonist Jack Jenney. Thompson and Her Rhythm Singers joined André Kostelanetz and His Orchestra for the hit series The Chesterfield Radio Program (CBS, 1936), followed by It's Chesterfield Time (CBS, 1937) for which Thompson and her large choir were teamed with Hal Kemp and His Orchestra.