John H. Collins
actor, director, writer
- Birth name:
- John Hancock Collins
- Born:
- 1889-12-31, New York City, New York, USA
- Died:
- 1918-10-23, New York City, New York, USA
- Professions:
- actor, director, writer
Biography
A Manhattan winter welcomed John H. Collins on 31 December 1889, and before the city’s bright lights could dim he had already begun shaping stories behind the camera. Between 1915 and 1918 he steered three now-celebrated silent-era landmarks—Children of Eve, The Girl Without a Soul and Riders of the Night—while off-set sharing his life with starlet Viola Dana. The same metropolis that launched his career claimed him on 23 October 1918, closing the curtain at twenty-eight and sealing his reputation as a brief but incandescent pioneer of early American film.
