ANDERSON, MARY (1859– ), American actress, was born in Sacramento (Calif.), on July 28, 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 15, with the advice of Charlotte Cushman, began to study for the stage, making her first appearance, at the age of 16, in Louisville (Ky.) 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 Rosa lind 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 Gala tea), Clarice (in his Comedy and Tragedy, written for her), Her mione, Perdita, Lady Macbeth and Ion (in Noon Talfourd's Ion). 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 (1886) , and her own A Few Memories (1896) .