Doris Eaton Travis

American actress

Doris Eaton Travis (March 14, 1904 – May 11, 2010) was an American dancer, stage and film actress, dance instructor, owner and manager, writer, and rancher, who was the last surviving Ziegfeld Girl, a troupe of acclaimed chorus girls who performed as members in the Broadway theatrical revues of the Ziegfeld Follies. She began performing onstage as a young child, and along with her siblings, she was one of The Seven Little Eatons, an extended family of show business performers. She made her Broadway debut in stage production at age 13, and a year later she was cast as a member of the famed Ziegfeld Follies—the youngest ever cast in the show. She continued to perform in stage productions and silent films throughout the 1920s and early 1930s. When her career in stage and screen declined, Travis started a second career as a dance instructor for the Arthur Murray Studios and was a local television personality in Detroit. Her association with Arthur Murray lasted for three decades, during which time she rose through the ranks to own and manage a chain of nearly twenty schools. After retiring from her career with Arthur Murray, she went on to manage a horse ranch with her husband and returned to school, eventually earning several degrees. Travis was featured in several books and documentaries about the Ziegfeld Follies years, and her other stage endeavours. Travis had also returned to the stage as a featured performer in benefit performances. She died at the age of 106 in 2010, a month after her last performance.

She was one of seven children born to Mary (née Saunders) and Charles H. Eaton in Norfolk, Virginia. She was raised as a Christian Scientist and remained a practitioner for the rest of her life. At the age of four, Travis began attending dance lessons in Washington, D. C., along with her sisters Mary and Pearl Eaton. In 1911, all three sisters were hired for a production of Maurice Maeterlinck's fantasy play The Blue Bird at the Belasco Theatre in Washington, D. C. While Travis had a minor role in the show, as a sleeping child in the "Palace of Night" scene, it marked the beginning of her career in professional theatre.

After The Blue Bird, in 1912, the three Eaton sisters and their younger brother Joe began appearing in various plays and melodramas for the Poli Stock Company. They quickly gained reputations as professional, reliable, and versatile actors, and were rarely out of work.

By 1918, Pearl Eaton had become a dancer and assistant to the director with the Ziegfeld Follies. The Follies were a series of elaborate musical revues on Broadway in New York City from 1907 through 1931. Inspired by the Folies Bergère of Paris, the Follies were conceived and produced by Florenz Ziegfeld. When Travis accompanied Pearl to a rehearsal, dance supervisor Ned Wayburn spotted her and hired her for a role in the summer touring company of the 1918 Follies. The day she finished the eighth grade, Travis began rehearsals to become a Ziegfeld Girl in the Follies. To circumvent child labour laws and the attention of the Gerry Society, she performed under the stage names "Doris Levant" (her young niece's name) and "Lucille Levant". As soon as she turned sixteen, she began using her real name again. Wayburn was one of only a few people who were aware of her true age, and arranged for her mother to accompany her on the Follies tour as a paid member of the company. One of her pupils, inventor and engineer Paul Travis, became her husband after an 11 year courtship. They wed on March 19, 1949 and their marriage lasted over fifty years, until Paul's death in 2000. They had no children. from the University of Oklahoma. In 1999, she made her first film appearance in 70 years with a small role in Man on the Moon with Jim Carrey. In 2001, she became the last surviving Ziegfeld Girl, following the death of Nona Otero Friedman (April 2, 1908 – August 3, 2001). She appeared in several documentaries and interviews about the Ziegfeld Follies and her siblings and colleagues; she also published an autobiography and family history, entitled The Days We Danced, in 2003, turning 100 in 2004.

On May 11, 2010, Travis died of an aneurysm in Commerce, Michigan, at the age of 106. On May 12, the lights of Broadway were dimmed in her honour. Year Title Role Notes 1921 At the Stage Door Betty 1922 The Broadway Peacock Rose Ingraham 1922 Tell Your Children Rosny Edwards 1922The Call of the East Mrs. Burleigh 1923 High Kickers 1923 Fashion Follies Doris the Leading Dancer 1928 Taking the Count Second daughter 1929 Street Girl Singer at Club Joyzelle 1929 The Very Idea Edith Goodhue 1999 Man on the Moon Eleanor Gould