San Diego’s sunlit silent-era mystery: Viola Dana before Hollywood

Long before movie stars filled red carpets, a few of them might have been kicking up sand right here in San Diego. Among the early screen talents who may have worked here was Viola Dana, a bright-eyed ingénue whose charm and expressive face made her one of the most recognizable stars of the 1910s and 1920s. In my opinion, she was quite beautiful, stylish, and ahead of her time.

Brooklyn Beauty

Born Virginia Flugrath on June 26, 1897, in Brooklyn, Dana began performing on stage as a child alongside her sisters, Edna Flugrath and Shirley Mason, who also found success in motion pictures. By 1910, she was appearing in short films for the Edison Co. in New York, and by 1915 had joined Metro Pictures Corp., where her popularity quickly soared.

Though most of her confirmed early work was filmed on the East Coast and in Los Angeles, trade publications such as Moving Picture World — a fascinating industry journal from the era — noted that film companies occasionally used Southern California’s coastlines, including La Jolla, Coronado, and Balboa Park, for outdoor scenes. These areas offered ideal lighting and landscapes for early filmmaking before studios built permanent backlots in Hollywood.

Early Films

Among the Metro productions of that period were The Cossack Whip (1916) and The Foolish Virgin (1916), both directed by John Collins, who later became Dana’s husband. Surviving notes and press reports suggest that some exterior scenes for these films were shot “south of Los Angeles,” possibly including locations in or near San Diego.

History suggests that during the 1910s, San Diego briefly attracted film companies drawn by its natural light, beaches, and Spanish-style architecture — all of which appeared in early shorts and features. While no surviving production logs confirm that Dana filmed here, Metro Pictures and other studios occasionally used Coronado and La Jolla for outdoor scenes between 1915 and 1917.

Those fleeting productions marked San Diego’s early brush with Hollywood — a quiet chapter in the city’s cinematic story that preceded its later use as a filming location for classics like Citizen Kane and Some Like It Hot.

As for Dana, her career took off soon after. She appeared in more than 100 silent films, including Blue Jeans (1917), The Devil’s Garden (1920), and Shadows (1922), becoming one of Metro’s top stars. Known for combining light comedy with emotional sincerity, she was named one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars in 1922 — a title given to promising young actresses on the verge of major stardom.

Married Life

Off-screen, Dana and Collins collaborated closely on films until his death from the 1918 influenza pandemic — a devastating loss that briefly halted her career. She never remarried but remained active in Hollywood through the 1930s, appearing in later productions like The Show of Shows (1929) and Two Sisters (1938).

In a 1975 interview with Classic Images, Dana looked back on her early outdoor shoots with fondness:

“Filming there was like playing in a sunlit playground. I loved the cliffs and the sand. It felt like the real world beyond the studio gates.”

Viola Dana died on July 3, 1987, at age 90, in Woodland Hills, and was laid to rest at Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City. She and Collins had no children, and though her connection to San Diego remains partly speculative, it offers a glimpse into the region’s forgotten role in the dawn of American filmmaking.

Selected Films:
The Cossack Whip (1916), The Foolish Virgin (1916), Blue Jeans (1917), The Devil’s Garden (1920), Shadows (1922)

Sources:
• Moving Picture World, 1916
• San Diego Union, July 1916 (archival references)
• Photoplay Magazine, 1922
• Classic Images, Feb. 1975
• IMDb, Viola Dana profile
• AFI Catalog of Feature Films

Debbie L. Sklar is a contributing editor to the Times of San Diego. For more historical stories about Hollywood’s Golden Age, visit here.