Eve Babitz (Los Angeles, 1943 – Los Angeles, 2021) was a visual artist and American writer, author of five novels and two non-fiction works. She collaborated with Vogue, Rolling Stones, and Esquire, and designed album covers for bands like The Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, and singer Linda Rondstadt. From a young age, she was surrounded by the stars of the era. Her father, a musician at 20th Century Fox, played with musicians of the stature of Nat King Cole, and her mother was an artist of French origin. Her godfather, the composer Igor Stravinsky, secretly passed her whiskey glasses under the table after she turned thirteen, while her godmother taught her how to properly eat caviar. Charles Chaplin, Greta Garbo, or Pablo Picasso were also family friends. Despite these influences, Babitz discarded a career in cinema or music because her passion was books. Brilliant in her studies, she chose to train away from the perfection of the youth of Hollywood High. In 1963, she spent a season in New York, where The Beatles' agent introduced her as "the best girl in America." She dedicated herself to partying with Andy Warhol, Yoko Ono, or the couple formed by Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne, a key reference for her. Babitz suddenly disappeared from public life in 1997, after suffering severe burns due to a cigarette that ignited on her skirt while driving. The reissue of her books has revalued the importance of her work. Literatura Random House has published The Other Hollywood, a memoir book that Babitz defines as a "confessional novel," in which the author narrates her youthful experiences surrounded by artists, rock stars, LSD trips, and the dream of a city that was her reason for being.
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