page_title: Anne Oldfield
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: Anne Oldfield / Career
context_page_description: Anne Oldfield was an English actress. She became the theatrical idol of her day. Her exquisite acting and ladylike carriage were the delight of her contemporaries, and her beauty and generosity found innumerable eulogists, as well as sneering detractors.
context_section_description: It took nearly a year before she landed her first small role as Candiope in John Dryden's Secret Love; or, The Maiden Queen (1699). 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.
  London gossip believed there to be rivalries between Oldfield, Anne Bracegirdle, Jane Rogers and Susannah Centlivre, all of whom were supposedly vying for the best roles. In 1706 Oldfield entered a conflict with the Drury Lane's management over benefits and salary she believed she had been promised, but which the theater refused to provide. Oldfield left and joined the competing acting company at Haymarket Theatre before returning to Drury Lane shortly after with a fresh contract and a new position as joint-sharer of the Drury Lane Theater. On a separate occasion, Oldfield was offered to become manager of the Theatre, "but her sex was thought to be an objection to that measure" thus being asked to name her own terms to stay in her old position, Oldfield received 200 guineas salary, which was ultimately raised to 500 guineas - ensuring Oldfield was the highest paid actress of her time.
caption: Anne Oldfield at the Covent Gardens.Edward Fisher, after Jonathan Richardson mezzotint, circa 1760-1785,
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