Merle Oberon

Merle Oberon (born Estelle Merle O'Brien Thompson; 19 February 191123 November 1979) was a British actress. She began her acting career in British cinema in the early 1930s, with a breakout role in ''The Private Life of Henry VIII'' (1933). She later moved to Hollywood, where she became an international star, earning acclaim for films such as '' The Dark Angel'' (1935), ''Wuthering Heights'' (1939), and '' That Uncertain Feeling'' (1941). Her career spanned from the 1920s to the 1970s, primarily in English-language films produced in the UK and the U.S. Her performance as Kitty Vane in ''The Dark Angel'' earned her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress.

Oberon's other notable roles included '' A Song to Remember'' (1945), '' Berlin Express'' (1948), and '' Désirée'' (1954). A traffic collision in 1937 caused facial injuries that nearly ended her career, but she recovered and remained active in film and television until 1973.

Early life

Estelle Merle O'Brien Thompson 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.

Parentage

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, 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", 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. 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 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).

Youth

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. 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.

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

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