Donald Brian

Biography

A winter baby from fog-lashed St. John’s, Newfoundland—17 February 1875—Donald Brian grew up to trade Atlantic gales for klieg lights. Between 1915 and 1937 he slipped into three very different skins: a fog-shrouded sleuth in *The Voice in the Fog*, a contraband king in *The Smugglers*, and a disgraced exile in *The Man Without a Country*. Off-screen he paired his life with actress Virginia O’Brien, thirty years his junior, their shared spotlight lasting until the curtain call. He exited stage west on 22 December 1948, in Great Neck, Long Island, leaving behind the echo of a Canadian accent that once spoke for silent crowds and early talkie audiences alike.