ANDERSON, MARY (1859– ), American actress was born at Sacramento, California, on the 28th of July 1859. Her father, an officer in the Confederate service in the Civil War, died in 1863. She was educated in various Roman Catholic institutions, and at the age of thirteen, with the advice of Charlotte Cushman, began to study for the stage, making her first appearance at Louisville, Kentucky, as Juliet in 1875. Her remarkable beauty created an immediate success, and she played in all the large cities of the United States with increasing popularity. Between 1883 and 1889 she had several seasons in London, and was the Rosalind in the performance of As You Like It which opened the Shakespeare Memorial theatre at Stratford-on-Avon. Among her chief parts were Galatea (in W. S. Gilbert’s Pygmalion and Galatea), Clarice (in his Comedy and Tragedy, written for her), Hermione, Perdita, and Julia (in The Hunchback). In 1889 she retired from the stage and in 1890 married Antonio de Navarro, and settled in England.
See William Winter’s Stage Life of Mary Anderson (New York, 1886), and her own A Few Memories (New York, 1896).