Wuthering Heights
1939
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Mar 7, 2023 · Merle Oberon, a pick for best actress in 1936, was born in Bombay and spent her career passing for white Andrew Lawrence Tue 7 Mar 2023 01.00 EST Last modified on Tue 7 Mar 2023 09.14 EST
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Merle Oberon's affairs and relationships might have set Hollywood a titter during her adult life, but the starlet was quite literally born into scandal as well. While Oberon's birth certificate lists Arthur Terrence O'Brien Thompson and Charlotte Selby as her parents, in reality, the truth was so much stranger and darker. Wikipedia
Merle Oberon was born Estelle Merle O’Brien Thompson in 1911 in Bombay, British India—what we know today as Mumbai, India. Oberon's father, Arthur Thompson, was a British mechanical engineer who worked for Indian Railways. Oberon's mother, Charlotte Selby, was from Ceylon—now known as Sri Lanka—and was of mixed ancestry, including some Maori roots....
Oberon’s birth certificate hid a twisted secret—Charlotte Selby, the woman listed as her mother, was actually her grandmother. Charlotte’s 12-year-old daughter Constance was Oberon’s real mother, and the starlet's real father is unknown to this day. In order to avoid prevent public embarrassment, Charlotte put her own name on the birth certificate....
How did Charlotte Selby pass a baby off as her own when she already had a 12-year-old daughter? Even though you might think that Charlotte would have been to old to pull off the lie,you'd be wrong.Charlotte herself had been an incredibly young mother, giving birth to Constance at just 14 years of age. When Oberon was born, Charlotte became a secret...
After appearing in a number of British films, Merle Oberon became Hollywood royalty nearly overnight thanks to a contract with legendary producer Samuel Goldwyn. She was just 24 when she appeared in the hit film The Dark Angel. Not only did Dark Angel launch Oberon's career, it also sky-rocketed her into cinema history. She netted an Oscar nominati...
Young Merle was just three years old when the man she thought was her father, Arthur Thompson, died during WWI. He perished on the Western Front at the Battle of the Somme—but he didn’t die in combat. Instead, pneumonia took his life in 1914. Wikimedia Commons
Thompson’s death left Charlotte, Constance, and Merle alone and impoverished in Bombay—until 1917, when it finally looked like their lives were turning around. They moved to Calcutta where Oberon received a scholarship to attend one of the finest private schools in the city. It should’ve been a step toward a better life, but it was the beginning of...
Oberon was relentlessly bullied at La Martiniere Calcutta School for Girls. They targeted her home life—she had no father anymore, and her single mother was poor and a woman of color. Kids always seem to know what will cut the deepest. Flickr
These early years should’ve been some of the happiest of Oberon’s life, but the bullying became so bad that she couldn't bear to attend the private school any longer. Oberon dropped out of school and begin home-schooling with her mother. Despite these setbacks, this difficult time had one enormous silver lining: This was when Oberon fell in love wi...
As a girl and into her teen years, Oberon went by the nickname “Queenie.” She was given it at birth, since her arrival on this planet coincided with Queen Mary’s and King George V’s 1911 visit to India. Wikimedia Commons
Mar 29, 2024 · Merle Oberon (born February 19, 1911, Bombay [now Mumbai], India—died November 23, 1979, Los Angeles, California, U.S.) was a British and American film actress who appeared in more than 30 motion pictures. Her most notable portrayal was that of the beautiful Cathy, who tormented and rejected Heathcliff (Laurence Olivier) in the 1939 classic ...
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Feb 5, 2023 · Oberon would only talk to her in Hindi. It was only after her death that details of her birth were found through a project of the British Library and findmypast.co.uk which published 200 years of records of the British Raj in India. Oberon’s birth certificate was among the records, records she had said were lost in a fire.
Apr 15, 2022 · Merle Oberon, a Hollywood star of the black and white era, is a forgotten icon in India, the country of her birth. Best-known for playing the lead in the classic Wuthering Heights, Oberon was an ...
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Mar 12, 2023 · March 12, 2023 11:30am. Merle Oberon, Oscar-nominated for 1935’s coming-of-age drama The Dark Angel, was born into poverty in Bombay and hid the fact that she was biracial her entire life ...
Feb 28, 2023 · In 1983, four years after her death, her Anglo-Indian heritage came to the fore in a biography titled Princess Merle: The Romantic Life of Merle Oberon. The authors discovered her baptism ...
