Anne Oldfield

Anne Oldfield
Anne Oldfield, by an unknown artist, held by the National Portrait Gallery
Born	1683 London, England
Died	23 October 1730(1730-10-23) (aged 47) Grosvenor Street, London, England
Occupation	Actress

Anne Oldfield (1683 – 23 October 1730), English actress, was born in London, to Anne Gourlaw and William Oldfield, a soldier.

Despite her rough economic background, Oldfield must have had a basic education because her biographers recount that she read plays voraciously throughout her youth. In 1699, she attracted George Farquhar's attention when he overheard her reciting lines from Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher’s play The Scornful Lady (1616) in a back room of her tavern. Soon after, she was hired by Christopher Rich to join the cast of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane.

It took nearly a year before she landed her first small role as Candiope in John Dryden’s Secret Love; or, The Maiden Queen (1667). After her success in a minor role, she was given the lead in John Fletcher’s The Pilgrim (1647). However, Oldfield wasn't truly noticed until the summer of 1703 when Susanna Verbruggen's contract was terminated before the company traveled to Bath to perform for Queen Anne and her court.

Oldfield became one of Drury Lane's leading actresses. Colley Cibber acknowledged that she had as much as he to do with the success of his The Careless Husband (1704), in which she created the part of Lady Modish. Of her portrayal of Lady Townly in his The Provok'd Husband (1728), Cibber was to say, "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.