Last of Ziegfeld Follies girls still alive and kicking

NORMAN, Okla. -- Frank Sinatra croons in the background as Doris Eaton Travis and her dance partner glide across the floor, her silver shoes sparkling in the light that bounces from the studio's mirrors.\nSuddenly, a funky Latin beat takes over at the Macias Dance Center in Oklahoma City, and the dancers slide into a cha-cha.\nAfter more than 90 years as a hoofer, dancing still comes easy to Travis, who was a chorus girl in the extravagant Ziegfeld Follies that enchanted Broadway from 1907 into the 1930s.\n"I'm the last of the Ziegfeld Follies girls now," she says. "It's an honor in a way. I certainly didn't think that would happen."\nShe is 102, with a few wrinkles and white curly hair that frames her eyes of blue. She credits her longevity to her ongoing love affair with dancing and other lifestyle choices. "I didn't drink or smoke. I didn't abuse myself physically," she says.\nNot only has Travis survived physically and mentally but professionally as well, with annual appearances on Broadway, a small role in a Jim Carrey movie and her recent memoir, "The Days We Danced: The Story of My Theatrical Family From Florenz Ziegfeld to Arthur Murray and Beyond."\nBack at her 400-acre ranch, about 10 miles northwest of the University of Oklahoma, Travis saunters around her 1970s rambler in a Southwest-inspired pantsuit and moccasins. She recalls details of the past 10 decades as if they happened yesterday.\nInterest in the 5-foot-2 centenarian has piqued since a 1997 reunion with four other Ziegfeld Follies girls for the reopening of the New Amsterdam Theater in New York City, where she danced about 80 years earlier.\n"I was the only one who could still dance," she says, chuckling.\nThat led to her annual involvement in the "Broadway Cares/Actors Equity Fights AIDS" benefit, where she caught the eye of Carrey and director Milos Forman, who were making the movie "Man on the Moon," about the life of comedian Andy Kaufman.\n"I played this woman who was supposed to be an actress who was no longer popular. I had to ride a stick horse and faint and then get resuscitated," Travis says, laughing as she does a fake gallop.\nA year later, Travis found her latest dance partner through an ad for a personal chef. Bill George eventually took on more responsibilities over the years, serving also as chauffeur, social coordinator, companion and friend.\n"It's really odd because day to day you forget she's a celebrity," George, 48, says. "You don't think of it until you see her in a setting. ... When she steps onto that stage to a sold-out house and people are on their feet screaming and applauding, then you realize it. That's when it's breathtaking. She's an American treasure"