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Viola Dana
Viola Dana
	Dana in 1922
Born	Virginia Flugrath; June 26, 1897; Brooklyn, New York City, New York, U.S.
Died	July 3, 1987 (aged 90); Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Resting place	Hollywood Forever Cemetery
Nationality	American
Years active	1900–1933
Spouses	; John H. Collins (m. 1915; died 1918) ; Maurice "Lefty" Flynn (m. 1925; div. 1929) ; Jimmy Thomson (m. 1930; div. 1945)
Relatives	Edna Flugrath (sister); Shirley Mason (sister)

Viola Dana (born Virginia Flugrath; June 26, 1897 – July 3, 1987) was an American film actress who was successful during the era of silent films. She appeared in over 100 films, but was unable to make the transition to sound films.

Early life

Born Virginia Flugrath on June 26, 1897, in Brooklyn, New York City, where she was raised, she was the middle sister of three siblings who all became actresses. Her sisters were known as Edna Flugrath and Shirley Mason.^[1] Dana appeared (billed as Viola Dana) in the Broadway play The Poor Little Rich Girl by Eleanor Gates.^[2]

She began performing in vaudeville with Dustin Farnum in The Little Rebel and played a bit part in The Model by Augustus Thomas.^[1]

Film career

Metro Pictures advertisement for the filmmaking team of Viola Dana and John H. Collins (1916)

Robert D. Walker and Dana in still for Aladdin's Other Lamp (1917)

With the stage name of Viola Dana, she entered films in 1910, including A Christmas Carol (1910). Her first motion picture was made at a former Manhattan (New York) riding academy on West 61st Street. The stalls had been transformed to dressing rooms. Dana became a star with the Edison Manufacturing Company, working at their studio in the Bronx. She fell in love with Edison director John Hancock Collins, and they married in 1915. Dana's success in Collins's Edison features such as Children of Eve (1915) and The Cossack Whip (1916) encouraged producer B.A. Rolfe to offer the couple lucrative contracts with his company, Rolfe Photoplays, which was released through Metro Pictures Corporation. Dana and Collins accepted Rolfe's offer in 1916 and made several films for Rolfe/Metro, notably The Girl Without a Soul and Blue Jeans (both 1917). Rolfe closed his New York-area studio in the face of the 1918 flu pandemic and sent most of his personnel to California. Dana left before Collins, who was finishing work at the studio; however, Collins contracted influenza and died in a New York hotel room on October 23, 1918.^{[citation needed]}

Dana remained in California acting for Metro throughout the 1920s, but her popularity gradually waned. One of her latter roles was in Frank Capra's first film for Columbia Pictures, That Certain Thing (1928). She retired from the screen in 1929. Her final screen credits are roles in Two Sisters (1929), One Splendid Hour (1929), and with her sister Leonie Flugrath, better known as Shirley Mason (years earlier she had appeared with her older sister, Edna Flugrath, in the 1923 film The Social Code), in The Show of Shows (1929). By the time she made her final film appearance in 1933, she had appeared in over 100 films. She briefly came out of retirement to appear in her first and only television role in a small part on Lux Video Theatre in 1956.^[3]

More than 50 years after her retirement from the screen, Dana appeared in the Kevin Brownlow/David Gill documentary series Hollywood (1980), discussing her career as a silent film star during the 1920s. Footage from the interview was used in the later documentary series Buster Keaton: A Hard Act to Follow (1987) from the same team.^[4]

Personal life

Dana's first husband was Edison director John Collins who died in the influenza pandemic of 1918. In 1920, she began a relationship with Ormer "Lock" Locklear, an aviator, military veteran and budding film star. Locklear died when his aircraft crashed on August 2, 1920, during a nighttime film shoot for The Skywayman. Although married, Locklear had been dating Dana, and on the night before his death, in a premonition, gave her some of his personal effects. Dana witnessed the 1920 crash and did not fly again for 25 years.^[5]^{[N 1]}

Locklear was reputed to be the prototype for the character of Waldo Pepper played by Robert Redford in The Great Waldo Pepper (1975). Dana was an honored guest at its premiere.^[6]

Dana was married to Yale football star and actor Maurice "Lefty" Flynn in June 1925.^[7] They divorced in February 1929.^[8] Her third and final marriage was to golfer Jimmy Thomson from 1930 to March 1945.^[9] In later years, she volunteered at the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital, and she moved there permanently in 1979.^[10] In 1986, one year before her death, she was the subject of a documentary short by Anthony Slide titled Vi: Portrait of a Silent Star, in which she talks of her life and career.

Death

Dana died on July 3, 1987, at the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles at the age of 90.^[11]

For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Dana has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. It is located at 6541 Hollywood Boulevard.^[12]

Filmography

Short subject

Year	Title	Role
1910	A Christmas Carol
1912	Children Who Labor	The Immigrant's Older Daughter
	The Butler and the Maid	The Statue
	How Father Accomplished His Work	The Second Daughter
	The Lord and the Peasant	Mary's Sister
	The Third Thanksgiving
1914	Molly the Drummer Boy	Molly Mason
	My Friend from India	Gertie Underholt
	Treasure Trove	Cora Fairfield
	The Blind Fiddler	The Fairy
	The Adventure of the Hasty Elopement	Ruth
	Seth's Sweetheart	Sally
	Who Goes There?	Kate - Toppy's Sweetheart
1915	Lena	Euphemia Miggles
	A Thorn Among Roses
	The Stone Heart	Nan Cowles
	The Glory of Clementina	Etta Concanna
	A Spiritual Elopement	Evelyn Banks
	The Portrait in the Attic	Thelma
	A Theft in the Dark	Lady Genevieve
	The Stoning	Ruth Fenton
	The Slavey Student	Alma Picket
	Her Happiness	Viola Winters
1933	The Strange Case of Poison Ivy

The Adventure of the Hasty Elopement (1914)

Features

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1915	The House of the Lost Court	Dolores Edgerton	Lost film
	Cohen's Luck	Minnie Cohen	Lost film
	On Dangerous Paths	Eleanor Thurston	Lost film
	Gladiola	Gladiola Bain	Lost film
	Children of Eve	Fifty-Fifty Mamie
1916	The Innocence of Ruth	Ruth Travers
	The Flower of No Man's Land	Echo	Lost film
	The Light of Happiness	Tangletop	Lost film
	The Gates of Eden	Eve / Evelyn	Lost film
	The Cossack Whip	Darya Orlinsky
1918	Threads of Fate	Dorothea	Lost film
	Rosie O'Grady	Rosie O'Grady	Lost film
	The Mortal Sin	Jane Anderson	Lost film
	God's Law and Man's	Ameia	Lost film
	Lady Barnacle	Lakshima	Lost film
	Aladdin’s Other Lamp	Patricia Smith (Patsy)	Lost film
	The Girl Without A Soul	Unity Beaumont / Priscilla Beaumont
	Blue Jeans	June
1918	The Winding Trail	Audrey Graham	Lost film
	A Weaver of Dreams	Judith Sylvester	Lost film
	Breakers Ahead	Ruth Bowman	Lost film
	Riders of the Night	Sally Castleton
	The Only Road	Nita
	Opportunity	Mary Willard
	Flower of the Dusk	Barbara North
1919	The Gold Cure	Annice Paisch	Lost film
	Satan Junior	Diana Ardway
	The Parisian Tigress	Jeanne	Lost film
	False Evidence	Madelon MacTavish
	Some Bride	Patricia Morley	Lost film
	The Microbe	Happy O'Brien, The Microbe	Lost film
	Please Get Married	Muriel Ashley	Lost film
1920	The Willow Tree	O-Riu
	Dangerous to Men	Eliza	Lost film
	The Chorus Girl's Romance	Marcia Meadows	Lost film
	Blackmail	Flossie Golden	Lost film
	Cinderella's Twin	Connie McGill	Lost film
1921	The Off-Shore Pirate	Ardita Farnam	Lost film
	Puppets of Fate	Sorrentina Palombra	Lost film
	Home Stuff	Madge Joy
	Life's Darn Funny	Zoe Roberts	Lost film
	The Match-Breaker	Jane Morgan	Lost film
	There Are No Villains	Rosa Moreland	Lost film
1922	The Fourteenth Lover	Vi Marchmont
	Glass Houses	Joy Duval	Lost film
	Seeing's Believing	Diana Webster
	They Like 'Em Rough	Katherine	Lost film
	The Five Dollar Baby	Ruth	Lost film
	June Madness	Clytie Whitmore	Lost film
	Love in the Dark	Mary Duffy	Lost film
1923	Crinoline and Romance	Miss Emmy Lou	Lost film
	Her Fatal Millions	Mary Bishop	Lost film
	Hollywood	Viola Dana	Lost film
	Rouged Lips	Norah MacPherson
	The Social Code	Babs Van Buren	Lost film
	In Search of a Thrill	Ann Clemance
	A Noise in Newboro	Martha Mason	Lost film
1924	The Heart Bandit	Molly O'Hara	Lost film
	Don't Doubt Your Husband	Helen Blake	Lost film
	The Beauty Prize	Connie Du Bois	Lost film
	Revelation	Joline Hofer
	Merton of the Movies	Sally Montague, 'Flips'	Lost film
	Open All Night	Thérèse Duverne
	Along Came Ruth	Ruth Ambrose	Lost film
	As Man Desires	Pandora La Croix	Lost film
1925	Forty Winks	Eleanor Butterworth	Lost film
	The Necessary Evil	Shirley Holmes	Lost film
	Winds of Chance	Rouletta Kirby
	The Great Love	Minette Bunker	Lost film
1926	Wild Oats Lane	Marie, the Girl	Lost film
	Bigger Than Barnum's	Juanita Calles
	Kosher Kitty Kelly	Kitty Kelly	Incomplete film, missing a reel
	The Ice Flood	Marie O'Neill
	The Silent Lover	Scadsza
	Bred in Old Kentucky	Katie O'Doone
1927	Home Struck	Barbara Page
	Salvation Jane	Salvation Jane
	Naughty Nanette	Nanette Pearson
	Lure of the Night Club	Mary Murdock
1928	That Certain Thing	Molly Kelly
1929	Two Sisters	Jean / Jane	Lost film
	One Splendid Hour	Bobbie Walsh
	The Show of Shows	Performer in 'The Pirate,' 'Meet My Sister' & 'Ladies of the Ensemble' Numbers	Black-and-white version is extant, and the technicolor version is partially extant

Gallery

The Flower of No Man's Land (1916)
The Flower of No Man's Land (1916)
The Light of Happiness (1916)
The Gates of Eden (1916)
Threads of Fate (1917)
The Mortal Sin (1917)
God's Law and Man's (1917)
Blue Jeans (1917)
A Weaver of Dreams (1918)
The Only Road (1918)
Riders of the Night (1918)
Some Bride (1919)

References

Notes

^ In the "Hazards of the Game" episode of Hollywood (1980), actresses Leatrice Joy and Viola Dana recalled Locklear and the making of his last film. Dana described his final flight.^[5]

Citations

^ ^a ^b Stone, Tammy. "Viola Dana." The Silent Collection; retrieved October 22, 2014.
^ The Poor Little Rich Girl as presented on Broadway at the Hudson Theatre January 21, 1913 to June 1913; IBDb.com
^ Lussier, Tim. "The tragic Flugrath sisters: Hard to believe, But all three experienced the same loss." silentsaregolden.com, 1999. Retrieved: October 22, 2014.
^ "Viola Dana, 1897–1987." Golden Silents, 2014. Retrieved: October 22, 2014.
^ ^a ^b Farmer 1984, p. 23.
^ Anderson, Nancy. "Viola Dana Loved the Real Waldo Pepper". Greeley Daily Tribune, April 28, 1975, p. 23. Retrieved: October 22, 2014.
^ "Viola Dana Marries Maurice "Lefty" Flynn." The Norwalk Hour, June 22, 1925, p. 5. Retrieved: May 1, 2013.
^ "Viola Dana To Wed Professional Golfer." The Portsmouth Sunday Times, October 11, 1930, p. 2. Retrieved: May 1, 2013.
^ "Divorce Granted Viola Dana." St. Petersburg Times, March 31, 1945, p. 8. Retrieved: May 1, 2013.
^ "Actress Viola Dana, 90, Star of 50 silent movies." Chicago Tribune, July 12, 1987. Retrieved: October 22, 2014.
^ "Silent Movie Star Viola Dana Dies." The Bryan Times, July 11, 1987, p. 3. Retrieved: May 1, 2013.
^ "Viola Dana". Hollywood Walk of Fame. Retrieved August 8, 2024.

Bibliography

Farmer, James H. Celluloid Wings: The Impact of Movies on Aviation. Blue Ridge Summit, Pennsylvania: Tab Books Inc., 1984. ISBN 978-0-83062-374-7.
"From the Movies to Stardom". Ogden Standard, January 10, 1914, p. 27.
"Little Viola Dana Ambitious to Become Grown-Up Actress". Indianapolis Star, January 15, 1914, p. 13.
"Viola Dana In Person at Faurot". Lima News, March 23, 1930, p. 24.