VIOLA DANA

Viola Dana (born Virginia Flugrath) was an actress from the 1910s to the 1930s. She is one of three acting sisters. Viola wisely changed her name from Virginia Flugrath, and her sister Shirley Mason also changed her name, but the third sister, Edna Flugrath, did not, which likely did not help her career. She was just 13 when she had her first movie role in a short subject adaptation of "A Christmas Carol", but by 1915, she was a leading star. She married director John Collins that year, but he died in the flu epidemic of 1918. She then had a romantic relationship with famed daredevil pilot Ormer Locklear (who was married), and he died performing a plane stunt in 1920, and Miss Dana was a witness to it. She married two more times and was a star through the 1920s, making a few appearances in 1930s movies. She then retired, except for a brief appearance in the documentary "Buster Keaton: A Hard Act to Follow", made the year after her passing in 1987, at the age of 90.