Doris Eaton Travis
Doris Eaton Travis (born March 14, 1904 in Norfolk , Virginia , † May 11, 2010 in Commerce , Michigan ) was an American actress and revue dancer.
Life
Along with her - later successful also as a dancer - sisters Mary and Pearl visited Doris Eaton Travis at the age of four years, a dance school in Washington DC in 1911, she joined with her two sisters in a supporting role in a production of Maurice Maeterlinck's play The Blue Bird on and started her acting career.
Together with their younger brother Joe, the sisters subsequently appeared in various pieces for the Poli Stock Company ensemble, where they earned a reputation as professional and versatile actors. In 1915 the sisters appeared again in a production of The Blue Bird , but this time Doris and Mary took on the two leading roles. They went on tour with the piece and played in New York City , among other places .
Her sister Pearl was working now in New York as a Ziegfeld Girl ( showgirls in the productions of Florenz Ziegfeld ). One day when Doris accompanied her sister to rehearsals, she was hired for the 1918 summer tour. She began rehearsing for this tour the same day she graduated from eighth grade. In order to circumvent the child labor laws, she used the stage names Doris Levant and Lucille Levant until she was 16 . Until 1920 she appeared as a dancer in the Ziegfeld Follies and the Midnight Frolics and was also used as an understudy for the musical star Marilyn Miller . At times she got company from her siblings Mary, Pearl, Doris, Joe and Charlie, who also appeared in Ziegfeld productions. In 1921, at the age of 17, she made her screen debut in the romantic drama At the Stage Door alongside the silent movie star Billie Dove . Until the early 1930s she was quite successful as a silent film actress, so she made the British film Tell Your Children in 1922, directed by Donald Crisp , whose subtitles were designed by Alfred Hitchcock .
On the side, she still appeared on Broadway shows , but also took on engagements in the Hollywood Music Box Revue - where she sang the song Singin 'In The Rain as early as 1929 - and the Gorham Follies in Los Angeles and the Hollywood Club in New York. At the age of 18, Doris Eaton married the producer of the Gorham Follies , Joe Gorham. Gorham, twice her age, turned out to be a violent husband and died of a heart attack just 10 months after the marriage. Eaton last appeared on Broadway in 1932, in a production of Page Pygmallion at the Bijou Theater . She still worked temporarily in a theater in Long Island and also made - together with her brother Charlie - a short trip to vaudeville .
In 1936 she was hired by Arthur Murray Dance Studios in New York as a tap dance teacher and practiced this profession for 32 years, initially as a teacher, later as the director of dance schools; she opened and ran 18 dance studios across Michigan . In 1949 she married one of her students, the inventor and engineer Paul Travis . This marriage lasted until Travis' death in 2000 and remained childless.
In 1968 she retired with her husband to a farm in Norman, Oklahoma , where she was successful in breeding racehorses until her death. In the late 1990s she appeared in a film for the first time in a break of over 60 years. In 1992 she graduated cum laude from the University of Oklahoma and was awarded an honorary doctorate from Oakland University in 2004. In 2006, at the age of 102, the photo book Century Girl: 100 Years in the Life of Doris Eaton Travis, Last Living Star of the Ziegfeld Follies was dedicated to her. The photographer Lauren Redniss, nominated for the Pulitzer Prize , published the illustrated book.
Doris Eaton Travis died in 2010 at the age of 106 as the last Ziegfeld girl alive.
Filmography
- 1921: At the Stage Door
- 1922: Tell Your Children
- 1922: His Surpreme Sacrifice
- 1922: The Call of the East
- 1922: The Broadway Peacock
- 1923: High Kickers
- 1923: Fashion Follies
- 1928: Taking the Count
- 1929: Street Girl
- 1929: The Very Idea
- 1933: Reckless Decision
- 1999: Man on the Moon (Man on the Moon)
Web links
- Doris Eaton Travis in the Internet Movie Database (English)
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Eaton Travis, Doris |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Eaton, Doris |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American actress and revue dancer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 14, 1904 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Norfolk , Virginia |
| DATE OF DEATH | May 11, 2010 |
| Place of death | Commerce , Michigan |