Doris Eaton Travis, Last Ziegfeld Girl and Norfolk Native Dies at 106

It is surprising at times to learn the names of some of the people who once called the Norfolk area home. They range from Gen Douglas MacArthur's mother, designer Perry Ellis, entertainers Wanda Sykes, Pearl Bailey, Ella Fitzgerald, Keely Smith, and Margaret Sullavan - and Doris Eaton Travis (pictured above). Some readers are likely saying who? Doris Eaton Travis died at 106 and the last of the surviving Ziegfeld Follies girls. The Ziegfeld girls were "it" back in the early decades of the 20th century. Travis kept going almost to the very end and was a supporter of Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. Both 365gay.com and the New York Daily News have stories on Travis' long and amazing life. Here are some highlights from the Daily News coverage:

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The final curtain fell on one of Broadway's giddiest and most glorious eras Tuesday with the death of Doris Eaton Travis, the last surviving Ziegfield Girl.
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Details of her death were not released. She was 106 and was still dancing in the 21st century even though she was born just four years after the end of the 19th. Broadway plans to dim its lights Wednesday in honor of her passing.
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She first joined the annual Ziegfield Follies in 1918, claiming to be 16 when she was really 14. A year later she came back for what is generally considered the best of all the Follies shows, 1919. Among other things, that edition introduced Irving Berlin's "A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody."
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Travis herself would later introduce "Singin' In the Rain," in "The Hollywood Music Box Revue of 1929." The song was written for her by Arthur Freed and Nacio Brown, whom Eaton was dating at the time. Twenty-three years before Gene Kelly immortalized "Singin' " in the movie of the same name, Eaton thought it was just another good song.
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Eaton stayed single until she was 45, when she married one of her dance students, Paul Travis. She and Paul bought and ran a 400-acre ranch in Oklahoma, even as Doris went back to school to finish the education the Ziefield Follies interrupted seven decades earlier. In 1992, age 88, she graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Oklahoma.
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A few weeks after her 100th birthday she was talking about how busy she'd been with 40 young horses. Meanwhile, she kept her ties to Broadway, and she was an active supporter of Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. This was one Ziegfield Girl who got her full kicks. "I probably have a few regrets," she said in 2004. "But I have no complaints."

Charlottesville - Club 216

I ended up going out last night to Charlottesville's only gay club, Club216, which is owned and operated by the PIEDMONT TRIANGLE SOCIETY, a non-profit organization established to promote the interests of the Gay community in Virginia, and which works to create a supportive social environment for its' members and guests. The club is a private club - you can pay a one night admission or join on an annual basis - which means it stays open until 5:00 AM and when I left at 2:30 AM, a long line was at the door waiting to get in. The dance music was great (if one likes club dance music) and the crowd was very diverse: straights, gays, blacks, whites, Asians, Indians (as in from India), and Hispanics. The club has, in addition to a large dance floor that takes up roughly 1/3 of the club, two rooms with pool tables, two bars, a stage for shows and an area with tables for those who want to sit and talk over the music.

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Having first come to Charlottesville for college at the beginnings of the 1970's when there were basically only one or two bars in the entire town, little would I have dreamed that Charlottesville would ever be like it is now or that it would have a gay club like Club216. How the world has changed! In addition to some beautiful lipstick lesbians who stood out in the crowd, there were several young gay couples dancing together - very intimately, I might add - that looked like Abercrombie model quality fraternity boys who would easily have blended in with my former Southern aristocracy fraternity brothers at Zeta Psi so many years ago. These boys were HOT. As the area's only after hours club, there were many straights too, all of whom seemed just fine about dancing side by side with the gay couples.

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In any event, if you are in town on a Friday or Saturday night (the only nights that it is open other than for special events), it's worth checking out Club216 - just be advised that things don't really get going full steam until after 1:00AM.