The Seven Little Eatons was a family of young American stage performers in the early part of the twentieth century. Although they were called The Seven Little Eatons, in fact only five of the siblings embarked on a career in showbiz.
Early days
The Eatons were born to Mary and Charles Eaton between 1894 and 1910 in Norfolk, Virginia, and began their careers in show business in 1911, when three of the children, Doris, Mary, and Pearl, were hired to appear in a production of Maurice Maeterlinck's fantasy playThe Blue Bird at the Shubert Belasco Theatre in Washington. After The Blue Bird closed, the sisters, younger brother Joe and cousin Avery, began appearing regularly in various plays and melodramas for the Poli stock company. Doris Eaton Travis, in her memoirs, noted that "the local stock managers at the Poli theatres knew that if you needed three or four or more children, you could call Mama Eaton and get them all in one place." The Eaton girls sometimes portrayed male roles; brother Joe sometimes portrayed female characters and was billed as "Josephine." They quickly gained reputations as professional, reliable and versatile actors, and were rarely out of work.
As their careers flourished, the Eatons moved to New York and, gradually, began performing in adult roles in musical theatre productions and silent films. They had a special connection to the Ziegfeld Follies: between 1918 and 1922, at least one Eaton was a member of the Follies cast. In the 1930s, with the advent of talkies, the decline of the Follies and the advent of the Great Depression, the careers of the Eaton siblings declined. Several struggled with alcoholism and drug addiction; others went on to careers in the United States military and the Arthur Murray chain of dance schools.
Evelyn Eaton Mills was the eldest of the Eaton siblings. While she was never a performer herself, she was perhaps somewhat responsible for the Eaton family's entrance into show business: she brought her three sisters to audition for their first show, The Blue Bird. She became, somewhat reluctantly, the "second mother" to the performing children of the family, and was compelled by her parents to leave school to look after them.
Joseph Eaton began his career at the age of five in Mrs. Wiggs and the Cabbage Patch. From 1912 to 1914, he appeared in nearly twenty different productions with the Poli Stock Company and elsewhere, often alongside one or more of his sisters. Joe performed in the 1921 edition of the Ziegfeld Follies, replacing his younger brother Charlie. However, unlike the other Eaton siblings, he did not pursue show business as an adult.
Robert Eaton, the eldest Eaton son, was not involved in show business. He served in the US Army during World War I, and later formed a maintenance service with his wife. He died of pneumonia in 1935.
