Lido Beach resident turns 100

Every morning, Ruth “Dodo” Berk makes herself a cup of coffee and a piece of toast, and sits down at the table in her Lido Beach Towers apartment to play solitaire. She planned to start Thursday the same way, except for one small detail: it would be her first morning with a triple-digit age.

The Lido Beach resident’s 100th birthday was Thursday. Berk said that she has had the “most amazing life,” and that she is intent on continuing to live her life on her own terms, which she says is the secret to her success and happiness. She is never bored, never frustrated and never at a loss for words.

“You can’t bluff happiness,” she said. “I’m happy because I make it that way.”

Berk was born on Sept. 18, 1914, in Brooklyn. She described herself as always having a “gregarious” personality. She said that as a child, she wanted to be a musical comedy star. When she was 17, she auditioned for the “Major Bowes Amateur Hour,” a popular radio talent show of the 1930s and ’40s.

“I was full of ambition, full of life, you couldn’t stop me,” she said.

Berk has always loved to sing, and she said she still sings every night when she takes a bath. Her signature song is “All of Me,” the 1950s hit by Johnnie Ray.

She got her nickname Dodo when she was a teenager. She described herself as being “prim and proper,” which prompted a boy to tell her that she reminded him of a dodo bird.

“I loved it,” Berk said. “I ran home and told my parents, don’t ever call me Ruth again, my name is Dodo.”

She met her husband, Alex, on a blind date, and they were married when she was 26. She said that they were always a team, and never took each other for granted, which she said is important in a marriage. In 1950, Berk said, she and her husband moved their family from Bensonhurst to Bayside, and four years later they relocated to Manhasset. They joined the North Shore Players, and performed together in shows like “Kiss Me Kate” and “Guys and Dolls.”

Berk said that after her husband died, after 52 years of marriage, she never shed a tear. They had everything they could have wanted together, and there was no reason to mourn. On a recent anniversary of his death, she said, she lit a candle for him, a Jewish tradition, and then proceeded to have a running conversation with him for two days.