Viola Dana

Viola Dana, born Virginia Flugrath on June 26, 1897, in Brooklyn, New York City, was an American actress whose career spanned stage, silent film, and early television. The middle of three sisters — the others known professionally as Edna Flugrath and Shirley Mason — she grew up in Brooklyn and began performing at an early age. Dana died on July 3, 1987, at the Motion Picture and Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, at the age of 90.

Her stage work included appearances in vaudeville alongside Dustin Farnum in The Little Rebel, as well as a bit part in Augustus Thomas's The Model. In 1913 she appeared on Broadway, billed as Viola Dana, in Eleanor Gates's play The Poor Little Rich Girl. Her Broadway credits also include the musical Poor Little Ritz Girl.

Dana entered films in 1910, with her first motion picture shot at a former Manhattan riding academy on West 61st Street whose stalls had been converted into dressing rooms. She built her early screen reputation with the Edison Manufacturing Company at their Bronx studio, appearing in features such as Children of Eve and The Cossack Whip, both made in 1915 and 1916 respectively under the direction of John Hancock Collins, whom she married in 1915. The success of those Edison productions led producer B.A. Rolfe to sign both Dana and Collins to contracts with Rolfe Photoplays, which released through Metro Pictures Corporation. The couple joined Rolfe in 1916 and completed several films together, among them The Girl Without a Soul and Blue Jeans, both from 1917.

When Rolfe relocated his operation to California during the 1918 influenza pandemic, Dana traveled ahead of Collins, who remained in New York to finish work at the studio. Collins contracted influenza and died in a New York hotel room on October 23, 1918. Dana continued working for Metro throughout the 1920s from California, though her popularity gradually declined during that period. Among her later roles was a part in That Certain Thing, Frank Capra's first film for Columbia Pictures, released in 1928. Her final screen credits include Two Sisters, One Splendid Hour, and The Show of Shows, all from 1929, the last of which featured her sister Shirley Mason. A brief return from retirement brought her a small role on Lux Video Theatre in 1956, her only television appearance. By the time of her final film appearance in 1933, Dana had accumulated credits in more than 100 films.

In her personal life, Dana became romantically involved in 1920 with aviator and film performer Ormer Locklear, who died on August 2, 1920, when his aircraft crashed during a nighttime shoot for The Skywayman. Dana witnessed the crash. Locklear was reputed to be the prototype for the Robert Redford character in The Great Waldo Pepper, and Dana was an honored guest at that film's 1975 premiere. She subsequently married Yale football player and actor Maurice Flynn in June 1925; they divorced in February 1929. Her third marriage, to golfer Jimmy Thomson, lasted from 1930 to March 1945.

In her later years Dana volunteered at the Motion Picture and Television Country House and Hospital, where she moved permanently in 1979. In 1986 she was the subject of a documentary short by Anthony Slide, Vi: Portrait of a Silent Star. She also appeared in Kevin Brownlow and David Gill's documentary series Hollywood in 1980, discussing her silent film career, and footage from that interview was later incorporated into the same team's Buster Keaton: A Hard Act to Follow in 1987. Dana holds a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6541 Hollywood Boulevard.