Mischa Barton

Mischa Anne Marsden Barton (born 24 January 1986) is an English-American fashion model, film, television, and stage actress, best known for her role as Marissa Cooper in the American television series The O.C.. Mischa Barton was born in Hammersmith, West London, England, to an Irish mother, Nuala (née Quinn), a photographer, and a Mancunian English father, Paul Marsden Barton, a foreign exchange broker. She has two sisters, younger Hania and elder Zoe, a barrister in London. Her father's work took the family to New York City when Barton was six, and ten days after her twentieth birthday, she became a naturalised citizen of the United States in 2006. Retaining her British citizenship, Barton in reference to her English roots states, "I actually feel more comfortable in England a lot of the time" yet stresses that, "I like people to discern that I'm an English-Irish girl who grew up in New York." Barton graduated from the Professional Children's School in Manhattan in 2004, and took a summer short course called Acting Shakespeare at The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, in June and July 2006, at Sir Richard Attenborough's urging, after he directed her in Closing the ring.