Anne Oldfield

Who was Anne Oldfield?

Anne Oldfield, English actress, was born in London, the daughter of a soldier.

She worked for a time as apprentice to a seamstress, until she attracted George Farquhar's attention by reciting some lines from a play in his hearing. She thereupon obtained an engagement at Drury Lane, where her beauty rather than her ability slowly brought her into favour, and it was not until ten years later that she was generally acknowledged as the best actress of her time.

In polite comedy, especially, she was unrivalled, and even the usually grudging Colley Cibber acknowledged that she had as much as he to do with the success of his The Careless Husband, in which she created the part of Lady Modish, reluctantly given to her because Susanna Verbruggen was ill. Of her portrayal of Lady Townly his The Provok'd Husband, Cibber was to say, memorably, "that here she outdid her usual Outdoing." She also played the title role in Ben Jonson's Epicoene, and Celia in his Volpone. In tragedy, too, she won laurels, and the list of her parts, many of them original, is a long and varied one.

She was the theatrical idol of her day.