Nationality American Years active 1900–1933 | Name Viola Dana Role Film actress | |
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Full Name Virginia Flugrath Born June 26, 1897 ( 1897-06-26 ) Brooklyn, New York, U.S. Died July 3, 1987, Woodland Hills, California, United States Parents Emil Flugrath, Mary Dubois Flugrath Spouse Jimmy Thomson (m. 1930–1945), Maurice Bennett Flynn (m. 1925–1929), John H. Collins (m. 1915–1918) Siblings Shirley Mason, Edna Flugrath Movies That Certain Thing, Blue Jeans, Open All Night, A Christmas Carol, The Ice Flood Similar People Edna Flugrath, Maurice Bennett Flynn, Marshall Neilan, James Cruze, Bud Palmer | ||
Movie legends viola dana
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. The diminutive actress appeared in over 100 films, but was unable to make the transition to sound films.
Contents
- Movie legends viola dana
- Cinderella s twin 1920 trailer viola dana
- Early life
- Film career
- Personal life
- Death
- Short subject
- Features
- References
Cinderella s twin 1920 trailer viola dana
Early life
Born Virginia Flugrath on June 26, 1897 in Brooklyn, New York, where she was raised, she was the middle sister of three siblings who would all become actresses. Her sisters were known as Edna Flugrath and Shirley Mason. Dana's "upbringing was fairly 'normal', without the poverty and tragedy that marked the early years of so many other young men and women who ultimately turned to the escapist world of the movies." Dana appeared on the stage at the age of three. She read Shakespeare and particularly identified with the teenage Juliet. She enjoyed a long run at the Hudson Theater in New York City. Between 1910 and 1912, she made four small appearances in the emergent film industry in New York, using the name Viola Flugrath. A particular favorite of audiences was her performance in David Belasco's Poor Little Rich Girl, when she was 16.
She began performing in vaudeville with Dustin Farnum in The Little Rebel and played a bit part in The Model by Augustus Thomas.
Film career
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 released through Metro Pictures Corporation. Dana and Collins accepted Rolfe's offer in 1916 and made several important 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.
Dana remained in California acting for Metro throughout the 1920s, but her popularity gradually waned. One of her last important 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), 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.
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.
Personal life
Dana's first husband was Edison director John Collins who died in the Influenza epidemic of 1918. In 1920, she began a relationship with Ormer "Lock" Locklear, a daring 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, for Fox Studios. 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 would not fly again for 25 years.
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.
Dana was married to Yale football star and actor Maurice "Lefty" Flynn in June 1925. They divorced in February 1929. Her third and final marriage was to golfer Jimmy Thomson from 1930 to March 1945. In later years, she volunteered at the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital, before moving there permanently in 1979.In 1990, she was the subject of a documentary short by Anthony Slide, "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. Her urn at Hollywood Forever Cemetery lists her as Viola Dana, as well as her real last name Flugrath.
For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Viola Dana has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. It is located at 6541 Hollywood Boulevard.