Viola Allen

Viola Emily Allen (October 27, 1867 – May 9, 1948) was an American stage actress born in Huntsville, Alabama, to Charles Leslie Allen and Sarah Jane Lyon, both actors. Some sources give her birth year as 1869. Allen moved to Boston at age three and later relocated with her family to Toronto, where she was educated at the Bishop Strachan School. She subsequently attended Miss Cornell's School for Girls, a boarding school in New York City.

Allen made her first stage appearance at age fourteen on July 4, 1882, at Madison Square Theatre in New York. The occasion arose when Annie Russell, playing the title role in Esmeralda, fell ill during the production's run. Because Allen's father was a member of the cast, the theater's stage manager asked whether his daughter might take over the part. That debut drew the notice of actor John McCullough, who engaged her as his leading lady in 1883. Between 1884 and 1886, Allen performed in both modern and Shakespearean productions alongside prominent nineteenth-century actors including Tommaso Salvini, Lawrence Barrett, Joseph Jefferson, and William J. Florence.

From 1885 to 1916, Allen appeared in more than two dozen Broadway productions, taking leading roles in Shakespeare, comedy, and original plays. Among her credits were Twelfth Night, The Winter's Tale, As You Like It, The Masqueraders, Under the Red Robe, and In the Palace of the King. She is particularly remembered for her work in Shenandoah, written by Bronson Howard, and Little Lord Fauntleroy, based on the novel by Frances Eliza Burnett. In 1898, she originated the role of Glory Quayle in Hall Caine's The Christian. Her later Broadway credits included The Lady of Coventry in 1911. Across her stage career she portrayed such characters as Virginia, Cordelia, Desdemona, Lydia Languish, Dolores, Julia, and Roma.

Beginning in 1915, Allen transitioned to silent film. She starred in The White Sister that year alongside Richard Travers, a production by Essanay Studios based on the 1909 stage play that had been a success for her. Her other film appearances included Getting Evidence (1907), The Scales of Justice (1914), and Open Your Eyes (1919). Her last professional stage appearance came in 1918 at a benefit performance supporting war relief, after which she remained active in charitable and theatrical organizations.

Allen married Peter Edward Cornell Duryea on August 16, 1905. They remained married until his death in 1944. Allen died at her home in New York City on May 9, 1948, at the age of 78, and is buried at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Sleepy Hollow, New York.