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It's a damned impressive thing to live to be 106.
It's even cooler if you happen to be the last of the Ziegfeld girls. Doris Eaton Travis grew up in a show business family: "The Seven Eatons." She started dancing when she was five. George Gershwin played the family piano when he dropped by. She auditioned for Florenz Ziegfeld when she was 14, and she was hired. Worked as a Ziegfeld girl, strolling across the big stage for multiple shows a day, wearing huge bejeweled and befeathered headdresses, working with the stars of Broadway. When she quit Ziegfeld she went on dancing elsewhere--and eventually wound up owning a bunch of Arthur Murray Dance Studios.
My favorite part: For ten years, starting in 1998, she danced in the the Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS Easter benefit--the last time was in 2008, when she was 104.
Supposedly, Herb Nacio Brown wrote "Singin' in the Rain" for her. That's a hell of a present right there.
Wherever Doris Eaton Travis is, I hope she's dancing.
It's even cooler if you happen to be the last of the Ziegfeld girls. Doris Eaton Travis grew up in a show business family: "The Seven Eatons." She started dancing when she was five. George Gershwin played the family piano when he dropped by. She auditioned for Florenz Ziegfeld when she was 14, and she was hired. Worked as a Ziegfeld girl, strolling across the big stage for multiple shows a day, wearing huge bejeweled and befeathered headdresses, working with the stars of Broadway. When she quit Ziegfeld she went on dancing elsewhere--and eventually wound up owning a bunch of Arthur Murray Dance Studios.
My favorite part: For ten years, starting in 1998, she danced in the the Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS Easter benefit--the last time was in 2008, when she was 104.
Supposedly, Herb Nacio Brown wrote "Singin' in the Rain" for her. That's a hell of a present right there.
Wherever Doris Eaton Travis is, I hope she's dancing.