DANCER DORIS EATON TRAVIS RETURNED TO BROADWAY last spring. Kicking up her heels at the Minskoff Theatre as part of the 2008 Easter Bonnet competition, Doris hasn't let retirement keep her from performing on stage whenever she gets the opportunity. In fact, she's danced at the Easter Bonnet competition every year for the last ten years! And she isn't just any dancer who keeps her tap shoes handy. Doris is the last surviving Ziegfield Follies girl. "Dancing is something I always love to do," she gleefully told me by phone recently from her horse ranch in Norman, Oklahoma.
I asked Doris—now in her eleventh decade—how she views longevity. "I don't think about years," she said. "I live every day as it comes and revel in the good I find in each one." A lifelong Christian Scientist, she says she still has times when she needs to rely on more than just looking for the good: "Some days don't sparkle as much as others," she told me, "but I pray through those times, and the joy always bubbles up again."
She also says that she has a simple rule to live by: "Remember that God owns the universe that you're a part of—and He constantly loves, guides, and supports every one of us."
