:Merle Oberon

Estelle Merle O'Brien ThompsonHigham and Moseley 1983, p. 24.[https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2507&dat=19380505&id=9UFAAAAAIBAJ&sjid=jFkMAAAAIBAJ&pg=5389,663535&hl=en "£5,000 Damages for Merle Oberon."] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160312100736/https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2507&dat=19380505&id=9UFAAAAAIBAJ&sjid=jFkMAAAAIBAJ&pg=5389,663535&hl=en |date=12 March 2016 }} The Glasgow Herald, 5 May 1938. Retrieved 5 January 2016. was born in Bombay, British India, on 19 February 1911, to a white father and a Burgher mother. She was given the nickname "Queenie" in honour of Queen Mary, who visited India along with King George V in 1911.Higham and Moseley 1983, p. 25.

For most of her life, Oberon concealed the truth about her parentage by claiming that she had been born in Tasmania, Australia to white parents,{{Cite news|url=https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2019/04/04/british-raj-india-staying-on/|title=Staying On|last=Hastings|first=Max|journal=New York Review of Books|date=4 April 2019|access-date=3 April 2019|language=en|issn=0028-7504|archive-date=3 April 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190403025458/https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2019/04/04/british-raj-india-staying-on/|url-status=live}} and that her birth records had been destroyed in a fire. She identified as British.

She was raised as the daughter of Arthur Terrence O'Brien Thompson, a Welsh mechanical engineer from Darlington who worked in Indian Railways,Higham and Moseley 1983, p. 21. and his wife, Charlotte Selby (whose full name was Constance Charlotte Thompson, according to her 1937 obituary), who was born in Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) and was a Burgher from British Ceylon. Oberon's birth certificate lists her biological mother as "Constance Thompson",{{Cite news |first=Anna |last=Kodé |title=Merle Oberon, Hollywood's First South Asian Star |work=The New York Times |date=2025-03-09 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/09/arts/merle-oberon-south-asian-hollywood-star.html |url-access=subscription |access-date=2025-03-09 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250410155458/https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/09/arts/merle-oberon-south-asian-hollywood-star.html |archive-date=2025-04-10 |url-status=live}} which could have referred to either Constance Charlotte Selby or her then-14-year-old daughter, Constance Joyce Selby. It is theorized that Thompson impregnated his stepdaughter by rape, with Charlotte raising Oberon as Constance's half-sister to avoid scandal. Neither Charlotte nor Constance acknowledged this theory during their lifetimes, and DNA testing did not exist then to determine paternity.{{Cite web |url=http://merleoberon.net/# |title=Merle Oberon: Hollywood's Face of Mystery |access-date=4 May 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090504124519/http://merleoberon.net/ |archive-date=4 May 2009 |url-status=dead |df=dmy-all }}{{cite web| url= http://www.abc.net.au/tv/documentaries/stories/s657300.htm|title='The Trouble With Merle' (TV Documentary)|website = abc.net.au|publisher=ABC TV (Australia)|access-date=19 September 2014|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051030144856/http://www.abc.net.au/tv/documentaries/stories/s657300.htm|archive-date = 30 October 2005}} Charlotte herself had given birth to Constance at the age of 14 after being raped by Henry Alfred Selby, the Anglo-Irish foreman of a tea plantation. In their 1983 biography of Oberon, Charles Higham and Roy Moseley, known to write highly fictionalised accounts of celebrities, also averred dubiously {{clarify span|that Selby|reason=Which Selby does this refer to - rapist father Henry Alfred Selby, or victimized mother Charlotte Selby|date=March 2025}} had Māori ancestry, though the Iwi (Maori tribe) was not known.Higham and Moseley 1983, 17-18.

Constance married Alexander Soares, with whom she had four children: Edna, Douglas, Harry, and Stanislaus. Edna and Douglas moved to the UK at an early age. Stanislaus, who lived in Surrey, Canada, was the only child to retain his father's surname of Soares. Harry eventually moved to Toronto, Canada, retaining grandmother Charlotte's maiden name, Selby. After locating Oberon's birth certificate in Indian government records in Bombay, Harry tried to visit her in Los Angeles, only for Oberon to refuse any meeting. When Higham and Moseley were working on their biography of Oberon, Harry withheld that he might have been Oberon's half-brother instead of her nephew; he later disclosed the information to Maree Delofski, producer of the 2002 ABC documentary The Trouble with Merle, which investigated the conflicting versions of Oberon's origin, and repeated it to biographer Mayukh Sen, who included it in the book Love, Queenie: Merle Oberon, Hollywood's First South Asian Star (2025).

In 1914, when Merle was three, Arthur Thompson joined the British Army and later died of pneumonia on the Western Front during the Battle of the Somme.Higham and 1983, pp. 25–26. Merle and Charlotte led an impoverished existence in shabby flats in Bombay for a few years before moving in 1917 to Calcutta.Higham and Moseley 1983, p. 28. Oberon attended La Martinière Calcutta for Girls, one of the best private schools in Calcutta, as a charity student.Woollacott, 2011, P97 There, she was constantly teased by the majority European students for her mixed ethnicity, which led her to quit school and receive lessons at home.Higham and Moseley 1983, p. 30.

Oberon performed with the Calcutta Amateur Dramatic Society. She loved films; she liked going to nightclubs. Indian journalist Sunanda K. Datta-Ray said that Merle worked as a telephone operator in Calcutta under the name Queenie Thomson, and won a contest at Firpo's Restaurant there, before the outset of her film career.Datta-Ray, Sunanda K. "More than skin-deep." Business Standard, New Delhi, 4 July 2009. Retrieved 16 July 2009.

At Firpo's in 1928, aged 18, Oberon met a former actor, Colonel Ben Finney, and dated him;Higham and Moseley 1983, pp. 33–34. however, when he saw Charlotte one night at her flat, he realized Oberon was of mixed ancestry and ended the relationship. However, Finney promised to introduce her to Rex Ingram of Victorine Studios (whom he had known through his relationship with the late Barbara La Marr), if she were prepared to travel to France, which she readily did. After packing all their belongings and moving to France, Oberon and her mother found that their supposed benefactor avoided them,Higham and Moseley 1983, p. 37. although he had left a good word for Oberon with Ingram at the studios in Nice. Ingram appreciated Oberon's exotic appearance and quickly hired her to be an extra in a party scene in a film named The Three Passions.Higham and Moseley 1983, p. 38.

File:Merle-Oberon-1937.jpg

Oberon arrived in England for the first time in 1928, aged 17. She worked as a club hostess under the name Queenie O'Brien and played in minor and unbilled roles in various films. "I couldn't dance or sing or write or paint. The only possible opening seemed to be in some line in which I could use my face. This was, in fact, no better than a hundred other faces, but it did possess a fortunately photogenic quality," she told a journalist at Film Weekly in 1939.Film Weekly, May 1939, p. 7.

Her film career received a major boost when director Alexander Korda took an interest and gave her a small but prominent role, under the name Merle Oberon, as Anne Boleyn in The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933) opposite Charles Laughton. The film became a major success and she was then given leading roles in other productions, starting with The Battle (1934) opposite Charles Boyer, and The Broken Melody (1934).

Oberon then made two more films for Korda: The Private Life of Don Juan (1934) with Douglas Fairbanks was a disappointment but The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934) with Leslie Howard, who became her lover for a while, was a huge hit.Higham and Mosley 1983, P. 94.

Oberon's career benefited from her relationship with, and later marriage to, Korda. He sold "shares" of her contract to producer Samuel Goldwyn and she moved to Hollywood. Her "mother" stayed behind in England. Oberon's career there began with Folies Bergère de Paris (1935) starring Maurice Chevalier.

Goldwyn put her in The Dark Angel (1935), which earned her a sole Academy Award for Best Actress nomination, then These Three (1936) for William Wyler and Beloved Enemy (1936). The latter co-starred David Niven, with whom Oberon had a serious romance. According to one biographer, she even wanted to marry him, but he was not faithful to her.Munn [https://books.google.com/books?id=OrDFAwAAQBAJ&q=merle+oberon&pg=PT96 2010, p. 70.] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160425141721/https://books.google.com/books?id=OrDFAwAAQBAJ&pg=PT96&dq=david+niven+merle+oberon&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CB0Q6AEwAGoVChMI2Ma5vui9xwIVgfCACh0M6AWK#v=onepage&q=merle%20oberon&f=false |date=25 April 2016 }}

File:Laurence Olivier Merle Oberon Wuthering Heights.jpg (1939)]]

She was selected to star in Korda's 1937 film, I, Claudius, as Messalina, but her injuries in a car crash resulted in the film being abandoned.{{Cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1817&dat=19370325&id=4uw-AAAAIBAJ&sjid=Dk0MAAAAIBAJ&pg=5220,3578690&hl=en|title=Star's injuries halt production of film|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160509022047/https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1817&dat=19370325&id=4uw-AAAAIBAJ&sjid=Dk0MAAAAIBAJ&pg=5220,3578690&hl=en |archive-date=9 May 2016|newspaper=The Tuscaloosa News|date=25 March 1937|page=8}}Graham, Sheilah. [https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1499&dat=19370404&id=jqtQAAAAIBAJ&sjid=CyIEAAAAIBAJ&pg=5649,4986274&hl=en "Hollywood gadabout."] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160518153258/https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1499&dat=19370404&id=jqtQAAAAIBAJ&sjid=CyIEAAAAIBAJ&pg=5649,4986274&hl=en |date=18 May 2016 }} Milwaukee Journal, 4 April 1937. Retrieved 5 January 2016.{{#tag:ref|In July 1937, United Press correspondent Dan Rogers noted: "Beautiful Merle Oberon has two scars from her recent automobile accident, but movie fans will never see them. She is completely recovered, is entertaining again at her home... and will start a new picture here this month.... One [injury] was a slight cut on the left eyelid; it left no mark at all. The most serious hurt was to the back of her head; it left a scar but of course it is hidden by her thick hair. Just in front of her left ear is a fine perpendicular white line a half-inch long. So skilfully did surgeons do their job that this scar is invisible except at a range of a yard or less, in strong light."Rogers, Dan. "Merle Oberon ready for work after accident; scars will not mar beauty." Corpus Christi Times (United Press), 7 July 1937. Retrieved 5 January 2016.|group=Note}} While in England she co-starred against Laurence Olivier in the Korda comedy The Divorce of Lady X (1938).

Back in Hollywood, Oberon appeared opposite Gary Cooper in The Cowboy and the Lady (1938) and then played Cathy in the highly acclaimed film Wuthering Heights (opposite Laurence Olivier; 1939).

In England Oberon made Over the Moon (1939) and The Lion Has Wings (1940) for Korda.

Oberon had darker skin, due to her Sri Lankan background. This was not too much a problem in black-and-white film, but she did not "test well" during colour film tests. According to Princess Merle, the biography written by Charles Higham with Roy Moseley, Oberon suffered damage to her complexion in 1940 from a combination of cosmetic poisoning and an allergic reaction to sulfa drugs in an attempt to lighten her skin. Alexander Korda sent her to a skin specialist in New York City, where she underwent several dermabrasion procedures.Higham and Moseley 1983.{{page needed|date=June 2013}} The results were only partially successful; her face had become noticeably pitted and indented unless concealed by makeup.

Oberon starred in Til We Meet Again (1940) and Affectionately Yours (1941) for Warner Bros, then That Uncertain Feeling (1941) for Ernst Lubitsch. Korda financed Lydia (1941). None of these films was particularly successful at the box office. Oberon was one of many stars to make cameos in Forever and a Day (1943) and Stage Door Canteen (1943). She made First Comes Courage (1943) at Columbia and played the female lead in The Lodger (1944), a popular noir. Also admired was Dark Waters (1944).

Oberon had a big hit with A Song to Remember (1945), in which she played the French writer George Sand. However, this was followed by a series of unsuccessful films at Universal: This Love of Ours (1946), Night in Paradise (1946), and Temptation (1946). She made some films for RKO, Night Song (1948), and Berlin Express (1948).

In France, Oberon appeared in Pardon My French (1951), then 24 Hours of a Woman's Life (1952) in England and All Is Possible in Granada (1954). Back in Hollywood she played the Empress Joséphine in Désirée (1954) and had a cameo role in Deep in My Heart (1954). She had the lead in a noir, The Price of Fear (1956).

Oberon came out of retirement sporadically to appear in films such as Of Love and Desire (1963) and Hotel (1967).

Her last movie was Interval (1973).

Charlotte Selby, Oberon’s possible birth grandmother, raised Oberon as her daughter until her death in 1937. In 1949, Oberon commissioned paintings of Charlotte based on an old photograph (but depicting Charlotte with lighter skin),Kahn, Salma. [http://sapnamagazine.com/?p=537 "Hollywood's first Indian actress: Merle Oberon."] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090131064019/http://sapnamagazine.com/?p=537 |date=31 January 2009 }} SAPNA Magazine, Winter 2009. Retrieved 5 January 2016. which hung in all her homes until Oberon's own death in 1979.Higham and Moseley 1983, p. 100.

Oberon married director Alexander Korda in 1939. While married, she had a brief affair in 1941 with Richard Hillary, an RAF fighter pilot who had been badly burned in the Battle of Britain. They met while he was on a goodwill tour of the United States. He later wrote the best-selling autobiography The Last Enemy.

Oberon became Lady Korda when her husband was knighted in 1942 by King George VI for his contribution to the war effort.{{London Gazette |issue=35719 |date=25 September 1942 |page=4175}} At the time, the couple was based at Hills House in Denham, England. She divorced him in 1945 to marry the American cinematographer Lucien Ballard. Ballard devised a special camera light for her, to obscure on film her facial scars suffered in the 1937 accident. The light became known as the "Obie".Higham and Moseley 1983, p. 161. She and Ballard divorced in 1949.

Oberon married Italian-born industrialist Bruno Pagliai in 1957, adopted two children with him and lived in Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico. While married to Pagliai, she had an affair with model Mike Edwards, who was 33 years her junior.{{cite book|first=Michael|last=Edwards|year=1988|title=Priscilla, Elvis, and Me|publisher=St. Martin's Press|pages=[https://archive.org/details/priscillaelvisme00edwa/page/214 214–215]|isbn=9780312022686}} In 1973, Oberon met then 36-year-old Dutch actor Robert Wolders while they filmed Interval. Oberon divorced Pagliai and married Wolders, who was 25 years her junior, in 1975.{{Cite news|last=Christopher|first=Schemering|date=28 April 1985|title=The High Price of Fame and Fortune|newspaper=The Washington Post|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/entertainment/books/1985/04/28/the-high-price-of-fame-and-fortune/fdc1ebd0-84e2-4a3f-ae0e-00abbd6940a1/|access-date=10 March 2021}}

To avoid prejudice over her mixed background, Oberon created a "cover story" of being born and raised in Tasmania, Australia, with her birth records being destroyed in a fire. The story eventually unravelled after her death.Higham and Moseley 1983, p. 291. Oberon is known to have been to Australia only twice.{{Cite book |last=Pybus |first=Cassandra |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=l-Y3SP7A4lYC&pg=PA109 |title=Till Apples Grow on an Orange Tree |date=1998 |publisher=Univ. of Queensland Press |isbn=978-0-7022-3036-3 |pages=161 |language=en}} Her first visit there was in 1965, on a film promotion. Another visit, to Hobart, Tasmania, was scheduled, but after journalists in Sydney pressed her for details of her early life, she became ill and shortly afterwards left for Mexico.

In 1978, the year before her death, she agreed to visit Hobart for a Lord mayoral reception. The Lord Mayor of Hobart became aware shortly before the reception that there was no proof she had been born in Tasmania, but he went ahead with the celebration to avoid embarrassment. Shortly after arriving at the reception, Oberon, to the disappointment of many, denied she had been born in Tasmania. She then excused herself, claiming illness, and was unavailable to answer questions about her background. On the way to the reception, she had told her driver that as a child she was on a ship with her father, who became ill when it was passing Hobart. They were taken ashore so he could be treated, thereby spending some of her early years on the island. During her Hobart stay, she remained in her hotel, gave no other interviews, and did not visit the theatre named in her honour.

Oberon retired after Interval and moved with Wolders to Malibu, California, where she died in 1979, aged 68, after suffering a stroke.{{Cite ODNB|id=56978|title=Oberon, Merle [real name Estelle Merle O'Brien Thompson] (1911–1979)}} Her body was interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZraJCgAAQBAJ&q=merle+oberon+forest+lawn&pg=PA65|title=Celebrities in Los Angeles Cemeteries: A Directory|first=Allan R.|last=Ellenberger|date=1 May 2001|publisher=McFarland|isbn=9780786450190|via=Google Books|access-date=20 September 2020|archive-date=12 October 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201012055533/https://books.google.com/books?id=ZraJCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA65&dq=merle+oberon+forest+lawn|url-status=live}}

Despite hiding her Asian heritage throughout her career, Oberon is regarded as the first Asian nominee in the Best Actress category and the first Asian individual overall to receive an Oscar nomination. In 2023, discussion around Oberon's Academy Awards status resurfaced after Malaysian actress Michelle Yeoh was nominated for and subsequently won the Best Actress award for her performance in Everything Everywhere All at Once. News outlets such as The Hollywood Reporter opted to describe Yeoh as "the first self-identified Asian actress", while making note of Oberon hiding her identity.{{Cite AV media|title=Who was the first Asian nominated for Best Actress?|author=Vox |url=https://www.youtube.com/shorts/_ukRHmIpo30 |via=YouTube |access-date=3 March 2023}}{{cite web|url=https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/michelle-yeoh-historic-2023-oscar-nomination-everything-everywhere-all-at-once-1235308400/|title=Michelle Yeoh on Historic Oscar Nom: 'This Is Beyond Just Me'|publisher=The Hollywood Reporter}}

For her contributions to film, Oberon received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, located at 6274 Hollywood Boulevard, on February 8, 1960.

Michael Korda, nephew of Alexander Korda, published a roman à clef about Oberon after her death titled Queenie in 1985, which was adapted into a 1987 television miniseries starring Mia Sara, Kirk Douglas, Sarah Miles, Claire Bloom, Leigh Lawson, and Joss Ackland.Korda 1999, pp. 446–447.

F. Scott Fitzgerald's unfinished novel The Last Tycoon was made into a television series with Jennifer Beals playing Margo Taft, a character created for the TV series and based on Oberon.{{Cite magazine|url=https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/07/last-tycoon-jennifer-beals-merle-oberon|title=The Fascinating Old Hollywood Story That Inspired The Last Tycoon's Best Plotline|first=Lisa|last=Liebman|magazine=Vanity Fair|date=28 July 2017|access-date=9 January 2018|archive-date=31 July 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170731013942/http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/07/last-tycoon-jennifer-beals-merle-oberon|url-status=live}}

New Zealand author Witi Ihimaera used Oberon's hidden South Asian and alleged Māori heritage as the inspiration for the novel White Lies,Freebooksvampire [http://www.ivampiresbook.com/Romance/White-Lies-by-Witi-Ihimaera/18.html White Lies, Author:Witi Ihimaera, 3. Merle Oberon was a Maori] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160810101320/http://www.ivampiresbook.com/Romance/White-Lies-by-Witi-Ihimaera/18.html |date=10 August 2016 }}Screenz 6 October 2014 [http://www.screenz.co.nz/bss-2014-maori-filmmaking/ BSS 2014: on Māori filmmaking – Keith Barclay] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160617145806/http://www.screenz.co.nz/bss-2014-maori-filmmaking/ |date=17 June 2016 }} which was turned into the 2013 movie White Lies.Auckland Actors [http://www.aucklandactors.co.nz/news/film/whale-rider-producer-a-novelist-reteam-for-medicine-woman Whale Rider producer & novelist reteam for Medicine Woman – Taken from Screen Daily, by Sandy George] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160208144431/http://www.aucklandactors.co.nz/news/film/whale-rider-producer-a-novelist-reteam-for-medicine-woman |date=8 February 2016 }}

British author Lindsay Ashford, publishing under the pen name Lindsay Jayne Ashford, wrote the 2017 historical fiction novel Whisper of the Moon Moth based on Oberon. The novel is a fictionalised retelling of Oberon's early life, rise to Hollywood stardom, and turbulent personal life.

• "Screen Snapshots Series 16, No. 4" (1936)
• "Hollywood Goes to Town" (1938)
• "Assignment: Foreign Legion" (1956/7 TV episodes)

{{Portal|Biography}}

• English rose (epithet)

{{Reflist|group=Note}}

{{Reflist|30em}}

{{Refbegin}}

• Bowden, Tim. The Devil in Tim: Penelope's Travels in Tasmania. London: Allen & Unwin, 2008. {{ISBN|978-1-74175-237-3}}.
• Casey, Bob. Merle Oberon: Face of Mystery. Hobart, Tasmania, Australia: Masterpiece@IXL, 2008. {{ISBN|978-0-98054-822-8}}.
• Higham, Charles and Roy Moseley. Princess Merle: The Romantic Life of Merle Oberon. New York: Coward-McCann Inc., 1983. {{ISBN|978-0-69811-231-5}}.
• Korda, Michael. Another Life: A Memoir of Other People. New York: Random House, 1999. {{ISBN|0-67945-659-7}}.
• Munn, Michael. David Niven: The Man Behind the Balloon. London: JR Books, 2010. {{ISBN|1-9-0677-967-8}}.
• Pybus, Cassandra. Till Apples Grow on an Orange Tree. St Lucia, Australia: University of Queensland Press, 1998. {{ISBN|978-0-70222-986-2}}.
• Woollacott, Angela. Race and the Modern Exotic. Three 'Australian' Women on Global Display. Monash University Publishing, 2011. {{ISBN|978-1-92186-712-5}}

{{Refend}}

{{External links|date=May 2020}}

{{Commons}}

• {{IMDb name|643353}}
• {{Tcmdb name}}
• {{Screenonline name|id=485559}}
• [http://classicmoviefavorites.com/oberon/ Classic Movie Favorites website]
• [http://film.virtual-history.com/person.php?personid=1370 Photographs of Merle Oberon and bibliography]
• {{Find a Grave|1574}} – Note 1917 birthyear on headstone
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20110716142112/http://www.condenaststore.com/Actors/Merle-Oberon/invt/103576 Merle Oberon in pose for The Dark Angel] in Vanity Fair portrait by Cecil Beaton
• {{cite news| url= http://www.hindu.com/fr/2008/08/01/stories/2008080151070200.htm | archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20080913214359/http://www.hindu.com/fr/2008/08/01/stories/2008080151070200.htm | url-status= dead | archive-date= 13 September 2008 |newspaper= The Hindu | date= 1 August 2008| title= From Bombay to Beverly Hills| first= Randor | last= Guy | access-date= 4 May 2016}}
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20051030144856/http://www.abc.net.au/tv/documentaries/stories/s657300.htm The Trouble With Merle] (Australian documentary) – investigation of her origins

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Oberon, Merle}}

Category:1911 births

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Category:Burials at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Glendale)

Category:English film actresses

Category:English people of Sri Lankan descent

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Category:Wives of knights