American actress, daughter of Samuel G. Ogden, a New York merchant; born in 1819, in Bordeaux, France, where she spent her childhood. At the age of sixteen she married James Mowatt, a lawyer of New York. In 1845 she made her début as an actress, in New York, and soon after made a successful tour in England and the United States. In 1851 she lost her husband, and in 1854 she was married to William F. Ritchie, editor of the Richmond Enquirer, and retired from the stage. In 1860 she went to Europe, residing at first on the Continent, and afterward near London, where she died in 1870. Her works include Pelayo, a poetical romance (1836); Gulzara, the Persian Slave, a play (1840); The Fortune-Hunter, a novel (1842); Fashion, a comedy (1845), successfully represented in New York and London; Evelyn, a tale (1845); Armand, a play (1848); The Autobiography of an Actress (1854); Mimic Life: Before and Behind the Curtain (1855); The Twin Roses (1857); Fairy Fingers, a novel (1865); The Mute Singer, a novel (1866); The Clergyman’s Wife (1867); and Italian Life and Legends (1870). She died at Henley-on-Thames, on the 28th of July 28. Her Autobiography of an Actress is a graceful narrative of her experience.
