"The only reason I'm in Hollywood is that I don't have the moral courage to refuse the money." Armed with a master of arts degree from U. Cal. Palmer."
There is a telling remark in Diana Colson's biography describing her beginning as an independent film maker: "I had never made a film!" Those words so succinctly characterize who she is as an artist and how she works - fearlessly, full-speed-ahead into the next art form that captures her. Berkeley, an engaging, outgoing personality, and an undergraduate degree in music, that film career was begun
in Australia with sculptor husband Frank and two small sons, and happily produced the first eight "Diana Colson Films"(for children). Based on their travels, shot in Hong Kong, Kyoto, Sydney, Bali, Thailand, Delhi and Mexico, they were distributed by three major film distributors. After three adventurous travel years Diana returned to teaching music at Southside Elementary and received the Teacher of the Year Award for Sarasota County (1975), probably for her original stage productions of such fancifuls as "The Rumplestiltskin Cantata" or "The Great Carrot Robbery," or her instructional filmstrips "Learnalongs" for which she composed 59 original songs and had full U.S. schools distribution. Diana retired from teaching in 1977. Then her grown-up career blossoms - in conjunction with Swain Film and Video she wrote and produced nine films and videos, two of which are award-winners, and several that are currently being released in DVD format (look for "The Longest Shortcut," a two time award-winner about the Panama Canal). When I think of Diana Colson I think of the full-length musicals produced for the stage (1990 to 2000) because I saw and immensely enjoyed all three of them - "Cornelius Coyote" and "Eye of Ra" at the Opera House with the Sarasota Youth Opera - and the third from a book by Jo Morrello, "The Fabulous Mrs. Today she tracks the arty social whirl of Sarasota as a weekly columinist for the Pelican Press and has just completed a feature length screenplay with co-writer Dawn Aldredge, titled "Triple Destiny."
