Mimi Kilgore

Kilgore moved to New York City after college to work in the art world. She worked as an art librarian at the Frick Collection.

In 1970, she moved to Houston with her husband and two sons after her father started an oil royalty business in Texas.

In the summer of 1970, Kilgore met the painter Willem de Kooning at a party. She became his muse and lover. A few weeks after meeting, they went on a public tour of houses in the Hamptons. While they were at one house, Kilgore found a frog that run over and flattened by a car tire. The shape of the frog reminded her of one of de Kooning’s paintings, so she gave it to de Kooning as a gift. He kept flattened frog for the rest of his life.

Kilgore’s sister, Susan Smith Blackburn, an actress and writer, died of breast cancer in 1977. Kilgore and the husband of her sister Bill Blackburn, created a prize in her honor that would be given to female playwrights.