Viola Allan
(1867-1948)

Allen, Viola (1867-1948) was the daughter of American actors. This "wide-eyed, round-faced, somewhat sad –miened beauty" was born in Huntsville, AL on October 27th, and educated in Boston, Toronto and New York. It was never her ambition to become an actress, but when Annie Russell became ill during the run of Esmeralda at the Madsion Square Theatre, where she was playing the title role, Viola’s father, C. Leslie Allen who was a member of the company, asked the stage manager, Mr. William Seymour, if his daughter could play the part. It was in this play, part and theatre that Miss Allen made her debut on July 4, 1882 at the age of 15. Her performance attracted the attention of John McCullough, who engaged her to play his daughter in Virginius. He later made her his leading lady in 1884 where she appeared with him in Othello and Richard III. In subsequent season she played opposite W. E. Sheridan, Lawrence Barrett, and the great Italian actor Tommaso Salvini. In 1889 she received much praise for her Gertrude Ellingham in Shenandoah, but a previous commitment forced her to leave after five weeks to perform in The Rivals and The Heir at Law with Joseph Jefferson and W.J. Florence, when they made their joint starring tour. Her Lydia Languish showed her as adept at comedy as she was in tragedy and melodrama. After an interval of playing modern plays in New York productions, she became leading lady with Charles Frohman’s Empire Stock Company in 1893 and remained there for five years. During this stint she created the leading female parts in the American productions of Liberty Hall, The Younger Sons, The Councilor’s Wife, Sowing the Wind, Gudgeons, The Masqueraders, John-a-Dreams, The Importance of Being Earnest, Michael and His Lost Angel, A Woman’s Reason, Marriage, Bohemia, The Highwaymen, Under the Red Robe, A Man and His Wife and The Conquers. Viola might have continued with the Empire had it not been for Elisabeth Marbury who showed her Hall Craine’s dramatization of his own novel The Christian. Charles Frohman dismissed it as trash and refused to produce it. But Miss Allen felt it had merit and in 1898 George C. Tyler mounted it starring her as Glory Quayle, the strong-headed, worldly girl converted by her clergyman lover. It was a huge success for Viola and it became her most famous role. From then on she received only "star" billing. Between appearances in contemporary plays such as Dolores in Marion Crawford’s In the Palace of the King (1900) and The White Sister (1909), Roman in Hall Caine’s The Eternal City (1902), Mistress Betty in Clyde Fitch’s The Toast of the Town (1905), she successfully undertook the Shakespearean parts of Viola (a role for which she was highly regarded), Hermione, Perdita, Imogen, and Rosalind. During the 1915-1916 season she toured as Lady Macbeth with J.K. Hackett. In March of 1916 she was Mistress Quickly in The Merry Wives of Windsor, her last New York appearance. When another play in which she was to star failed out of town she retired. She died at the age of 81 having played none other than the leading lady or the star role.