Doris Eaton Travis
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Doris Eaton Travis , also known as Doris Eaton (b. March 14, 1904, Norfolk, Virginia, USA) is a Broadway and film performer, dance instructor and author. She is also the oldest (and presumably only) living Ziegfeld girl.
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[edit] Early life and career
Eaton began attending dance lessons in Washington D.C., along with her sisters Mary and Pearl, at the age of four. In 1911, all three sisters were hired for a production of Maurice Maeterlinck's fantasy play The Blue Bird at the Shubert Belasco Theatre in Washington. While Eaton had a minor role in the show, 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.
In 1915, all three sisters appeared in a new production of The Blue Bird for Poli; Doris and Mary were given the starring roles of Mytyl and Tytyl. The siblings were subsequently invited to reprise their roles for a New York and road tour of the play, produced by the Shubert Brothers. When the show closed, Doris and her brother Charlie, who had followed his four siblings into show business, resumed their work with Poli and appeared together in their first Broadway show, Mother Carey's Chickens at the Cort Theatre.
[edit] Ziegfeld Follies years
By 1918, Pearl Eaton had become a dancer and assistant to the director with the Ziegfeld Follies. When Doris 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 same day she finished the eighth grade, Doris began rehearsals for the Follies. To circumvent child labor laws and the attention of the Gerry Society, she performed under the stage names "Doris Levant" (actually 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.
Eaton Travis would associate with Ziegfeld for several years, appearing in the 1918, 1919 and 1920 editions of the Ziegfeld Follies and the 1919 Midnight Frolics. She was not the only member of the Eaton family to prosper in the show: by 1922, Mary, Pearl, Doris, Joe and ten-year old Charlie had all performed in one edition of the Follies or another.
Travis made her motion picture debut in the 1921 romantic drama At the Stage Door opposite film actress Billie Dove.
Eaton Travis' last appearance with the Follies was the 1920 edition. Her career flourished in the 1920s and early 1930s: she made a number of silent films, including Tell Your Children with director Donald Crisp in England and Egypt; performed in five different Broadway shows and danced in the Hollywood Music Box Revue and the Gorham Follies in Los Angeles and the Hollywood Club in New York.
While in the Hollywood Music Box Revue, Eaton Travis premiered two important songs, both composed by Nacio Herb Brown: "Singin' in the Rain" and "The Doll Dance." Eaton Travis actually was the lyricist for the latter song, but did not receive credit as such.
At eighteen, Eaton Travis married thirty-six year old Joe Gorham, the producer of the Gorham Follies. The marriage was opposed by the Eaton clan and quickly regretted by Eaton Travis when Gorham revealed a cruel and abusive nature. The union lasted less than a year, ending when Gorham died of a heart attack.
[edit] Second and third careers
Eaton Travis performed in her final Broadway show, Page Pygmallion at the Bijou Theatre, in 1932. Her career, along with those of her siblings, declined in the 1930s. She returned to work in stock theatrical productions on Long Island and had a brief, albeit unsuccessful, foray into vaudeville with brother Charlie.
In 1936, Eaton Travis was hired by the Arthur Murray Dance Studios in New York as a tap dance instructor. She remained with the Arthur Murray company for thirty-two years, advancing from teaching to owning her own school. Eventually Eaton Travis established and owned a total of eighteen Arthur Murray studios across Michigan. She authored a column of dance advice and commentary for the Detroit News entitled "On Your Toes" and appeared in local television programs.
One of Eaton Travis' pupils, inventor and engineer Paul Travis, would eventually become her husband. Their marriage would endure for over fifty years, until Paul's death in 2000.
After retiring from the dance studio business in 1968, Eaton Travis and her husband moved to Norman, Oklahoma, and established a ranch. The initial 220-acre plot grew to 880-acres, and many of the quarter-horses bred and raised on the ranch had success in racing. The ranch is still in operation (largely as a boarding facility), and managed by Eaton Travis, as of 2006.
[edit] Later life
In 1992, Eaton Travis graduated cum laude from the University of Oklahoma. She has 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. In 1999 she made her first film appearance in over fifty years with a small role in Man on the Moon with Jim Carrey.
In 1998, Eaton Travis returned to Broadway and the New Amsterdam Theatre to participate in the Easter Bonnet Competition, a benefit for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. She has become the show's "lucky charm" and an audience favorite, and has continued to appear in the production every year, often presenting renditions of her old dances.
[edit] See also
[edit] Sources
- Travis, Doris Eaton. The Days We Danced, Marquand Books, 2003, ISBN 0-8061-9950-4
- Doris Eaton Travis at the Internet Broadway Database
- Doris Eaton Travis at the Internet Movie Database
- Interview with Victoria Wilson
