Doris Eaton Travis started at the Ziegfeld Follies the day she finished eighth grade, and she took her final Broadway bow in April, at age 106. The youngest Ziegfeld girl ever hired, Travis was also the last survivor of the elaborately costumed song and dance troupe, which performed in the famed New Amsterdam Theater and other venues in producer Flo Ziegfeld’s revues from 1907 to 1931.
Born into a theatrical family, Travis grew up performing with her six siblings, including sisters Mary and Pearl. For a brief time in the 1920s, said Playbill.com, “the three Eaton girls were famous enough that their heart-shaped faces graced the covers of celebrity magazines.” Her older sister Pearl was working as a dance director for the Follies when Doris visited one day. A striking beauty, she was promptly invited to become an understudy.
Travis spent three years with the Follies, once performing “the paprika part in the salad dance,” said The New York Times. “She left to be in silent movies, plays, and musical revues.” In 1923, she married Joseph Gorham, owner of the Gorham Follies in Hollywood, who died just six months after they were wed. She later had a long affair with songwriter Nacio Herb Brown, who co-wrote the classic “Singin’ in the Rain,” which Travis sang in the Hollywood Music Box Revue.
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Travis left show business in the 1930s, opened a string of Arthur Murray Dance Studios in Michigan, and married Paul Travis, a wealthy engineer. She earned her high school diploma at age 77, and at 92 began appearing at annual Broadway benefits fighting AIDS. During her last appearance, late last month, she rode on stage on a giant Easter basket. Then, steadied by two shirtless young male dancers, she executed a couple of kicks and brought the audience to its feet.
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