Mischa Barton Bio

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About Mischa Barton

Actress Mischa Anne Barton was born in London , England on January 24, 1986, the second child of her English stockbroker father and her Irish mother.  Mischa maintains her British citizenship though she was a toddler when the family moved to New York City , where her father continued to work in the world of finance.  Her father’s career afforded a life of privilege for his wife Nuala and three daughters: Zoe, who is now a barrister in London , Mischa, and younger sister Hania, who is currently an aspiring singer.  The close-knit family traveled the globe, sampling the best the world has to offer. 

At age eight, Mischa attended summer camp with her sister.  For a parent performance, the children were asked to compose and deliver a monologue.  Mischa’s speech about turtles was impressive enough to command the attention of a talent scout who was in the audience at the posh camp.  He proclaimed that Mischa was a star.  Her parents were delighted, but also concerned about where a show business path would take their daughter.  By the time Mischa was a nine-year old fifth grader, she decided that it was time to give acting a shot.

Mischa auditioned for the lead role in Tony Kushner’s Slavs!  Undaunted by the fact that the part required a Russian accent, she turned to an acting coach.  Thus well prepared, Mischa won the part and the opportunity to perform with future Academy Award winner Marisa Tomei.  Mischa’s success in Slavs! led to other theatrical roles in productions such as James Lapine’s Twelve Dreams, produced at Lincoln Center , and Where the Truth Lies and One Flea Spare, both of which were part of the New York Shakespeare Festival.  Perhaps because of these early experiences, Mischa cites William Shakespeare as one of her favorite authors, along with George Orwell.

Though Mischa enjoyed theater, she wanted to try her hand at other pursuits.  In 1994 she earned a year-long recurring role as Lilly Benton Montgomery on the long-running ABC soap All My Children.  As Mischa was honing her acting skills, she was also growing into her beauty.  Before she even reached her teens, she was signed to the Ford Modeling Agency.  She was featured in a Calvin Klein campaign and also worked for Vogue and Gitano.  Mischa found the work demanding but rewarding; “every teenager’s dream.”

Despite her success as a model, Mischa did not forgo her acting career.  Her film debut occurred in 1998 with Lawn Dogs (1997) opposite Sam Rockwell, which won critical praise at Sundance.  Her performance earned Mischa a role in the modern day Bonnie and Clyde take-off Pups in 1999.  That year also found Mischa on the big screen in the summer romantic comedy Notting Hill with Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant, and in the phenomenal blockbuster The Sixth Sense with Bruce Willis and Haley Joel Osment, in which Mischa played a troubled young ghost. 

After each successive appearance, more offers came Mischa’s way.  She returned to television for the 2001-2002 season of ABC’s critically-acclaimed Once and Again and also played the title role of Frankie opposite Joan Plowright in Frankie & Hazel for Barbra Streisand’s Barwood Films on Showtime (2000). On film she appeared with Jennifer Jason Leigh and Drew Barrymore in Skipped Parts (2000) and co-starred with Jessica Alba in Paranoid (2000).

The year 2001 saw Mischa appearing with Courtney Love and Lili Taylor in Julie Johnson and with Piper Perabo in Lost and Delirious, which explored lesbianism at a private boarding school.  Both films premiered at Sundance.  That same year Mischa starred with Melanie Griffith and Dominique Swain in Tart.  Mischa was on location in Australia for the filming of Disney’s A Ring of Endless Light (2002).  In 2003 Mischa appeared with Madeleine Stowe in the horror thriller Octane. 

However, the role that made Mischa Barton a household name came in 2003 with the premiere of the Fox television series The O.C. (as in “ Orange County ,” California ).  In this prime-time soap/drama, which some have called a Beverly Hills, 90210 clone, Mischa plays rich and popular O.C. high school student Marissa Cooper, coping with the teenage struggles of life and love against the luxurious backdrop of this affluent community.

Among her many other accolades, Mischa was named “It Girl 2003” by Entertainment Weekly’s “It List” for Top Creative People in Entertainment.  She has also been the subject of numerous magazine pictorials and is a spokesperson for Neutrogena.  In 2005 Mischa was awarded the #33 spot on Maxim’s Hot 100 list, and that same year Rozino Smith’s album Blurry Summer hit stores, containing a song entitled “Mischa Barton.”  Mischa makes her home in Manhattan , where she enjoys spending time with her family and her pet cat, Angelo.

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