Doris Eaton Travis, former Ziegfeld girl, is rehearsing for a brief return to Broadway at 101:
NEW YORK — She began dancing on Broadway while the doughboys were still fighting in France. In the 1920s, she was Al Jolson’s leading lady, and later was the first to perform “Singin’ in the Rain” _ years before Gene Kelly.
On Friday, 101-year-old Doris Eaton Travis, a former Ziegfeld Girl, was back on a 42nd Street stage, rehearsing for Broadway’s 19th annual fund-raiser to fight AIDS.
“It is very thrilling and very delightful to step out onto that (New) Amsterdam Theater, where my career in musical comedy theater started,” Travis said after working through a little tap dance number with about a dozen male hoofers. “It’s the same old floor that I tapped on.”
The 5-foot-2, silver-haired dynamo, who lives in Norman, Okla., is the featured performer in an opening number for the benefit show (scheduled for Monday and Tuesday).
Hired by Ziegfeld—at 14 the youngest Ziegfeld girl. Played opposite Jolson and Cantor. Ran a chain of Arthur Murray dance studios, then a horse ranch. Each of these things is remarkable enough but I think that misses the real story:
At age 76, she attended the University of Oklahoma, and in 1992 at age 88, she graduated with a degree in history as the oldest graduate in the university�s history. She currently is pursuing a master�s degree in liberal studies.
Now that is a lifelong commitment to learning.
Wow!