Mischa Anne Barton (born January 24, 1986) is a British-born American actress.

Barton was born in London, England, to an English father and an Irish mother, but moved to New York City when she was 4 years old. She has two sisters, Hania and Zoe.

Barton graduated from the Professional Children's School in Manhattan in 2004. She claimed that after graduating high school, she hoped to attend the Yale School of Drama; currently she is not enrolled in college.

Barton began her acting career at age 9 in New York Theatre with a lead role in Slavs!, written by Tony Kushner. She took part in many plays, taking a lead role in James Lapine's Twelve Dreams.

She made her film debut in Lawn Dogs, which won awards at film festivals around the world . Since then she has appeared in several films, including The Sixth Sense, Notting Hill and Lost and Delirious. She was the star of the last film.

Mischa Barton first appeared on television in 1994, as a younger Lily Montgomery in All My Children. She is best known for her current role as Marissa Cooper on the TV series The O.C.. She also had a one time appearence in the Fox's show "Fastlane" and appeared in the video for Goodbye My Lover by James Blunt.

Barton is also a model, with such prominent clients as Calvin Klein. She has appeared in advertisements for Aéropostale, Dooney and Bourke, JC (Jeans and Clothes) and Neutrogena. The executives at Neutrogena decided to make her the cover girl for their new worldwide ad campaign; in this regard Barton followed in the footsteps of fellow teen stars Jennifer Love Hewitt, Mandy Moore and Kristin Kreuk. She also did a commercial for Keds sneakers.

As of the start of Punk'd season 6, Barton became the last of the O.C. young guns and tenth non-US/non-Canadian star ever to get Punk'd overall.