Bikes on Film: Viola Dana Wizzing Around the Track

"Ride a bicycle if you want to keep your figure slim, your muscles supple and your health perfect."

When the studio and production company signed Viola Dana (born Virginia Flugrath, 1897-1987) to a leading role for the silent film Open All Night, they knew what they were doing. And so did she - not that Viola, "an enthusiastic cyclist," would be involved in any of the actual racing scenes but, once Paramount had finished constructing a track (an exact duplicate of Paris' Winter Circus track) on a lot of their West Coast Studio, Ms. Dana could be found, every day after filming, "wizzing around the track... in her nifty shorts and sweater."

Dana first appeared on stage at the age of three, and began to transition into the nascent film industry between 1910 and 1912. During those earliest appearances she performed under the name Viola Flugrath before taking the stage name Viola Dana in 1910 when she acted in A Christmas Carol. Before retiring from acting profession in 1933, she played roles in more than one-hundred films.