Merle Oberon

Yes, she was successful at passing for white. Her actual career never had sustained momentum, tho. She did a lot of films in England, where the standards were lower and the industry wasn't as big, but she couldn't really match up to the competition in Hollywood.

She was filthy ritch from marrying her mentor (producer Alexander Korda), so it didn't really matter.

Oh yeah, she succeeded. She was born into a situation where she didn't have any good options, and she made it big in the white world anyway and nobody had a clue!

Well... maybe the occasional clue. I remember being in college and seeing her version of "Wuthering Heights" for the first time. When they got to the end and Cathy was dying and had on all this dark eye makeup, I looked her and thought "Gosh, that makeup makes her look Indian!". She normally didn't, I guess she slipped up once and let it show.

Was she a poster child for FPHL?

[quote]R3 Was she a poster child for FPHL?

I think she was an early poster child for flaunting valuable jewelry...

FPHL?

[quote] She did a lot of films in England, where the standards were lower

Not only in film. Look who they’re letting into the royal family nowadays.

If I have the genealogy correct, it's Merle's grandmother was Eurasian and part Maori, so her grandmother was mixed. She was mostly white with a splash of color so it wasn't that difficult for her to "pass".

Her story is messed up. If I got it right, her grandmother had her mother when she was 14, and her mother gave birth to Merle when she was 12. She was raised as her grandmother's child.

Laurence Olivier hated Merle - he wanted Vivien Leigh to play Cathy in Wuthering Heights. Not sure how the timing went, as the film was released the same year as Gone With the Wind (1939). After GWTW, Vivien collapsed and had to go to a sanatarium (she had tuberculosis that flared up throughout her life but she never gave up her chain smoking habit).

Anyway, must have been an awful year for Larry with Vivien outshining him on film - though on stage he was the bigger presence.

Mulatto!

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

From above link:

---------------------------------------------------------

[quote]One of her potentially memorable roles was eliminated when a violent car crash nearly did her face in and the filming of I, Claudius had to be scrapped. She was partway through the shooting, playing Messalina to Charles Laughton’s Claudius, when it all went down the tubes, though the Josef Von Sternberg-directed project was fairly troubled all along.

[quote]The car accident, along with two horrifying allergic reactions to sulfa drugs and the special makeup she wore in order to appear more pale onscreen, left her with permanent facial scarring. She underwent excruciating dermabrasion to try to fix this with only mixed results. Her second husband, cameraman Lucien Ballard, developed a special light (dubbed the “Obie”) that went very far in disguising, first, her accident-scarred and, later, her pitted skin on film. The object soon took off for other screen goddesses wanting to disguise wrinkles and/or other facial issues.

I think Prince Philip fucked her back in the day. Might explain Harry's attraction to Sparkle.

Merle's real name was Estelle Merle O'Brien Thompson. She changed O'Brien to Oberon and dropped her first name. She explained her exotic looks by claiming to be born in Tasmania. She was actually born in Mumbai and lived in India for the first 17 years of her life. Merle's mother did not look white, so during her Hollywood years Merle passed her off as her maid.

I believe the man pictured with Merle in R13 is Dutch actor Robert Wolders, who met her in 1973 when he co-starred in her last film, Interval. Merle divorced her husband, Bruno Pagliai, to marry Wolders. After Merle's death in 1979, Wolders became the longtime companion of Audrey Hepburn, who was also Dutch. They were together for 16 years until Hepburn's death. More recently Wolders has taken up with Henry Fonda's widow, Shirlee. He sounds like a gigolo but with very good taste.

Her husband Wolders was on Laredo in the late 60s and was said to have bedded lots of Hollywood rich ladies and probably a few guys as well. I would love to know the real story on this guy.......

So much hate for Merle. No, she wasn't on the level of Davis or Hepburn, but she was a very popular leading lady in the 30s and 40s. It must have been so stressful to have to hide her heritage like she did. She was hospitalized in England and underwent a hysterectomy...and back then they didn't tell you that you were having one. Years later after she thought her film career would be over because of her facial scars, she and Alexander Korea wanted to start a family. She found out to her surprise that she was unable to bear children. She was devastated.

R18, He was in an episode of MTM, where he dates Mary and his handsomeness is much remarked on in the script. I think if he was with Hepburn that long, he must have been ok.

I always thought she was weird looking, before I knew she was white mixed with anything else (Indian). If she hadn't pretended to be all-white English, I would have processed her appearance differently. I think that Indian people can be very beautiful, and even just run-of-the-mill-looking Indian people are quite good looking, but fronting as white did Merle no favors.

Good lord, R8, is there any Olivier film in which he didn't try to get Vivien Leigh cast as his co-star? Wuthering Heights, Rebecca...?

Excuse me, not Indian but Sri Lankan. That explains the strength of the "Eurasian" part of her heritage. In my experience, Sri Lankans tend to be very dark and distinctive-looking (with the usual range of variation, obviously).

plastic surgery back then was amazing .Take notes DR.MIAMI. Wow.... hmm...

R17 that was her grandmother who she passed off as the maid. Merle was diluted enough to pass as white.

Olivia Munn has a similar look. I don't think I would have guessed Merle had some Sri Lankan in her, she looks more half East-Asian.

She had a great jewel collection. Here's her Persian turquoise set that looks beautiful on her tanned skin.

another view

[quote] Here's her Persian turquoise set that looks beautiful on her tanned skin.

Mary!

Who is this woman? Is she biracial? Is she a pale skinned African American?

hmmm

R29 Yes, she was half black and passed for white. She was the inspiration for "Imitation of Life".

Oh okay, I don't really consider it "passing" for white if they're biracial considering many of them are of course going to come out light due to being mixed with white. Usually what I consider "passing" for white are those who are full black with really pale/light skin which happens quite often actually. But I think Imitation of Life is a movie every black woman should watch and/or has watched at least once with their mom; along with The Color Purple. These two movies are very defined on what it means to black, or of color, and a woman.

R32, I suspect some good ole boys and gals in Alabama would disagree with your definition of "passing."

Many people from many groups would disagree with that rather limited definition.

[quote] She was the inspiration for "Imitation of Life".

Link please.

MGM wanted her for Julie in Showboat but she couldn't sing the score as well as Ava Gardner.

R35 That was sarcasm in response to R29 who came here asking who she was when the answer could be found by simply reading the thread.

Did she ever deny she was mixed?

How dare these queens talk such trash about the transcendent Merle Oberon? Madame Oberon to you, peasants. Her Cathy in "Wuthering Heights" will live forever.

The story of her private life is more interesting than her acting! Really, she was lovely, but never impressed me as an actor or a screen presence. She was a dainty little thing, but when she tried to play anyone with a big personality (like Cathy in "Wuthering Heights" or poet George Sand in "A Song to Remember"), she fell short. She just couldn't dominate the screen the way an iconic star can.

And BTW I don't hate her or blame her for "passing" and hiding her background. If she wanted to work as an actress she had to, discrimination and type-casting are still blatant and legal for actors, back then she'd have been stuck playing maids and desperately hoping she could get into a Fu Manchu film. She didn't have any good options available, she made her choice and the choice carried the price of living a lie, but telling the truth would have come with the penalty of poverty and second-class citizenship. Sometimes, life just doesn't offer a person a win-win scenario.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

Mulatto!

[quote]R39 How dare these queens talk such trash about the transcendent Merle Oberon? Madame Oberon to you, peasants. Her Cathy in "Wuthering Heights" will live forever.

And that's all she's remembered for. Laurence Olivier was the big hit in that film - she was just along for the ride. It's not like Oberon got an Oscar nomination or anything...those went to costars Olivier, and Geraldine Fitzgerald (as Isabella).

A film of hers I recommend : "These Three, " with Miriam Hopkins and Joel McCrea. The de-gayed movie version of "The Children's Hour." Very solid, also directed by Wyler.

Merle Oberon arrived at the Port of New York, USA on the SS Paris on Nov 20 1934 after sailing from Plymouth.

Her name is listed on the same ship's manifest page as 2 other actors bound for Hollywood: Errol Flynn and Louis (Charles) Hayward.

Merle is listed as "Estelle Thompson", age 23, born in Bombay, India.

Both Flynn's and Hayward's ages are listed as age 25.

Hayward was born in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Flynn apparently never liked Merle, particularly because he WAS actually born in Tasmania, which was her later claim.

Flynn's contact in the US was listed as Warner Brothers. Hayward's contact was RKO Studios. Merle's contact was Twentieth Century Pictures.

Sorry, I don't know how to upload the manifest pages for an image to post.

R31 should do her homework. The original Imitation of Life was a Claudette Colbert vehicle made in 1934, before Merle Oberon was ever heard of in the US, and certainly before her life story was public knowledge.

[quote]R45 A film of hers I recommend : "These Three, " with Miriam Hopkins and Joel McCrea.

He was really handsome. And sexy! I'm surprised he didn't have more big, iconic films....aside from SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS.

I figured that’s why she never had children.

Again R46, that was a snarky reply to R29 who didn't bother to read the thread.

R49 Well if he didn't know who Merle Oberon is, I doubt he'd grasp a joke about Imitation of Life!

Has anyone watched the miniseries based on Oberon's life, as mentioned by OP? It's called Queenie and stars gorgeous Mia Sara. Instead of "Merle Oberon", she is given the hysterical and porny sounding name "Dawn Avalon."

Her mother had her at 12? WTF.

I wonder if she and Flynn ever met, and if he saw through her claims to be from Tasmania? And if so, what he did? He was not a nice man, at least not always to women.

So they worked for different studios, but were on a ship together, and Oberon had an affair with a then-unknown David Niven while he was sharing a house with Flynn (separate bedrooms). Their paths must have crossed more than once.

[quote]R50 Has anyone watched the miniseries based on Oberon's life, as mentioned by OP? It's called Queenie and stars gorgeous Mia Sara. Instead of "Merle Oberon", she is given the hysterical and porny sounding name "Dawn Avalon."

Honestly, Merle Oberon was more beautiful and successful than I'll ever be...but in the big picture of my life neither she nor Mia Sara are/were exciting enough stars to ever make me watch it.

I think I thumbed through the book. A necklace gets stolen, or something.

But do you remember Oberon Mall?

Not sure about the Flynn thing. She claimed she was born in Tasmania but did she claim she grew up there? She was friendly with Vivien Leigh who also was born in India and lived in India as a child. Most of Mele's heritage was English or Irish who worked in India, which wasn't exactly unheard of at the time.

There's a documentary I've seen advertised on youtube called "The Trouble with Merle," about some of her prevarications and mendacities.

[quote]R55 She was friendly with Vivien Leigh who also was born in India and lived in India as a child.

They were professional rivals, early on, and signed to the same producer (whom Oberon married.) I think they socially acknowledged each other, but were never close.

They don't look terribly engaged at this party.

Love how she "explained her exotic looks" by saying she was Tasmanian.

Vivien was always on that DAMN phone!

Vivien Leigh had very big hands that she was always trying to cover up. I think she called them her "paws."

Vivien Leigh had a smartphone? Maybe Hedy Lamarr invented that too!

Vivien Leigh is an obvious time traveler

You're all forgetting that Merle became a star at a time when studios and their producers controlled all the press and information about their investments. There was no internet,kids! Hedy Lamarr hadn't invented it yet.

Keeping her background a secret was easy and the American public wouldn't have even thought to question any of the fodder that Hedda, Louella and the movie magazines fed them. The columnists were all in on it if they were infatuated with the actor.

It was a more naive time.

[quote] I wonder if she and Flynn ever met, and if he saw through her claims to be from Tasmania? And if so, what he did? He was not a nice man, at least not always to women.

[quote] So they worked for different studios, but were on a ship together, and Oberon had an affair with a then-unknown David Niven while he was sharing a house with Flynn (separate bedrooms). Their paths must have crossed more than once.

It appears that the SS Paris, the ship they traveled on, was not very big.

There were only 25 First Class passengers who boarded at Plymouth. Among those 25 were Flynn, Hayward, and Merle. There were 4 Tourist Class travelers who also boarded at Plymouth. Most of the rest of the passengers boarded at LeHavre.

It seems a strong possibility that Flynn, Hayward and Merle, all actors, would have met aboard the SS Paris. By the way, in each case, their fare was paid by the company they would work for.

All this rubbish about "passing" for white. Basically Merle Oberon , like most Indians was Caucasian, i.e the same ethnicity as most European descent people. There is no such ethnicity as 'white'. Why are Americans so god damned racist about their European descent, as if it holds them up as something special?

For that matter why do you all fuss about 'mixed' race, because most Americans of African descent are more European then African due to the propensity of their white ancestors for raping African women who were slaves. You all sound like a bunch of Klu Klux Klan idiots.

How's the Brit press treating Ms. Markle?

Fuck off R65. There is nothing wrong with the topic.

How dare you lecture Americans. Thread has absolutely nothing to do with America or slavery in America. But it is about the British colonizing India. Did you read the thread? Her grandmother had her mother when she was 14, and her mother was 12 when Merle was born. Grab a fucking clue, her father and grandfather (i.e. child fuckers) were not American.

If she lied about her heritage, and passed her dark skinned grandmother off as her maid it had nothing to do with Americans and is definitely a legitimate topic for discussion.

R65, she may have been physically the same as most white people, but if she wanted any kind of a career as an actress she really did have to hide her background. American audiences during her heyday were not kind to the mixed, many believed in the "one drop" role and would never have accepted her as a leading lady. The studio heads who wanted to sell tickets to a white-dominated country would never promote anyone who they knew to be mixed-race to leading lady status, hell, they even preferred to give all the exotic-Asian-beauty roles to red-haired Myrna Loy!

So yeah, if she wanted a major career as an actress, she really did have to hide her background and "pass".

How did this woman become a movie star? Her exotic looks? She wasn't much of an actress.

So she tried to hide the fact that she was of Indian descent? Was that considered such a stigma back then? She must have had to wear a ton of makeup to cover up her dark skin. I think I heard Boris Karloff was said to have some Indian ancestry, too. Was that kept hidden, too? It certainly seems possible; her had a swarthy complexion and so does his daughter.

Oberon was good friends with Norma Shearer, the Queen Bee of the MGM lot, married to Irving Thalberg, the head of production at the studio. They both seemed the same type: movie stars of the old school who took their roles as symbols of movie star glamour very seriously.

Oberon tried to be sexy and alluring onscreen too long. There was some movie she did where she played the lover of a much younger man and was ridiculed for it.

I think the most interesting thing about her was her spectacular jewelry. That emerald necklace is considered one of the most famous pieces of Hollywood jewelry of all time.

Merle appears in one of Roddy MacDowell's home movies from Malibu in the mid-1960s when she was 50-something and she looks merely well-tanned. And that's without the benefit of special lighting and makeup.

R1. I agree with you that Estelle Thompson wasn’t particularly talented or versatile but I take umbrage at you saying “the standards were lower” in English films. Hollywood has money but England has integrity. Korda made her a star in some very ornamental roles but it was San Goldwyn who imported her and tried in vain giving bigger roles.

R8, R22 It’s perfectly understandable that Olivier might hate he less-than-talented Merle. He also wanted Vivien in his ‘Henry V’ and the original stage production of ‘The Entertainer’

R3 FPHL = Female pattern hair loss. We discussed her egg-shaped, recessive forehead in the Kate Hepburn thread.

R15 The story about the car accident is brilliantly accounted in this clip with the outrageously fey Dirk Bogarde and two other wonderful homosexuals—

Hasn't anyone here seen her in "Desiree"? As Josephine? Marlon Brando adored her!!!!

R65 iz TRIGGERED.

Hedda Hopper and Fox's Public Department said Marlon adored her but Marlon didn't. He said she was a self-obsessed, tiny bitch. She said he was a pig.

He liked mulatto sluts but not stuck-up mulatto Merle. She wouldn't allow men to enter her Acapulco mansion without washing their feet so as not to stain the 1 inch thick WHITE floor carpet.

Why didn't she buy a black carpet to match her pussy?

R71 - I’ve seen the documentary on the shelved production of I Claudius a couple of times over the years.

It’s funny that everyone on here agrees she wasn’t much of an actress - yet her rep in her own time seems pretty stellar. Basically they make out that her having the accident put an end to it all because she - and only she! - could play Messalina and do the role justice. Without Merle - there was no point in going on.

And yet...

They only seemed to have very little footage of her to show. In it - she looks exquisite! But it really doesn’t seem like there was so much that the role couldn’t have been recast. And I’m sure there were some other knockout young actresses who could have done the part justice...

I think the Merle missing in action thing was really an excuse to put an axe through it. It seems to have been - a very troubled production that overall just wasn’t working. Delays and glitches galore - and the studio was probably looking at a budget black hole and decided to cut their losses.

Thoughts?

R76, I've seen that a couple of times too. Isn't it implied that her accident was used as an excuse? I enjoy von Sternberg's Dietrich films, but I don't think the world was deprived of a masterpiece here. I love the Jacobi version.

I adore emeralds, but that necklace, no matter how famous it is, is fucking ugly. Those big green globs? Ugh.

Merle was married to Bruno Pagliai, a super rich industrialist/ They lived in Acapulco in an incredible house called Galal. It was heavily featured in the media of the time. It's in an old Architectural Digest Book I have on Celebrity Homes. Joel McCrea is very underrated. He was great in Sullivan's Travels and The Palm Beach Story, both by Preston Sturges. His father was a big utilities exec and Joel bought land before the utilities got there and became one of the biggest landowners in the San Fernando Valley. Thousand Oaks was pretty much all his property. He ended up one of the richest actors of all time. He referred to himself as a Rancher. He was married to the actress Frances Dee for 50 years. She was one of the most beautiful actresses of the era but gave up her career to be a wife and Mother.

R65 It was considered rape to have sex with a slave one purchased?

Man, I bet the prisons were full of slave owners then.

I'd have given it up, too, R79. Joel McCrea was beautiful.

The idiot who keeps misusing there word 'mulatto', give it a rest already. And get a dictionary or a thesaurus.

Trash Merle Oberon all you like. Everyone has a favorite or someone that they dislike. I can't stand Ginger Rogers or Marlene Dietrich.

And Merle Oberon did receive one Oscar nomination for THE DARK ANGEL in 1935.

She was in Beloved Enemy, about the Troubles. Good film.

Louisiana-born Dorothy Lamour explained her "exotic coloring" as due to her "Spanish - French - Irish" background...and a bit of Creole...but WHITE CREOLE! Really!

Wasn't his son Jody gay r79?

Who's Vivien texting r57?

R86 R57 Vivien is checking her dance card. They are both exhausted from too much dancing in high heels.

Dear R85. Don't know.

R68 and others, yes, being non-white or of mixed race was definitely a stigma back then! America is a deeply racist country and that is reflected in Hollywood. The production code explicitly banned any depiction of international romantic relationships. That is why a film like The Bitter Tea of General Yen could be made before the code but not after.

If Merle Oberon had come out as being of mixed race, she would have been relegated to small Anna Mae Wong-type parts, as a maid or some such. She would never have been a leading lady.

Sorry, in the post above I meant R69.

I love Merle Oberon. WH is the first adult movie we were taken to my sis and I. And she was VERY beautiful

Gah! I meant to write that the production code banned any depiction of *interracial* romantic relationships! Clearly I need another cup of coffee this morning.

"Love is a Many Splendored Thing" with William Holden and Jennifer Jones depicted an romance between and American and a Eurasian woman. Jennifer Jones was done up in bad makeup to make her look Eurasian rather than casting a more, uh, "exotic" looking actress.

This movie was made during the production code era, but like most movies of the time when characters dare to step out of beyond what was acceptable at the time there is no happy ending for them.

Sometime in the mid '60s, before I knew about Merle's heritage, I was watching Indira Gandhi on TV and thought, "My God, she sounds exactly like Merle Oberon!"

That's a boy's name. Why'd she have a boy's name? Was she Cailyn before he became a thing and a she?

Don't be an imbecile r95.

An imbecile, on this site? C'est ne pas possible, Madame!!

I've seen the film "Desiree".

Fictionalized account of the real silk merchant's daughter Desiree Clary who was engaged to Napoleon but eventually married Bernadotte, a French general who was later to become king of Sweden and Norway. (Desiree's sister married Napoleon's brother, Joseph.) Napoleon broke off the engagement when he met Josephine.

Married to a French general and with her sister married to Joseph Bonaparte, Desiree was still in contact with Napoleon and Josephine after the broken engagement and her marriage to Bernadotte.

Jean Simmons played Desiree. Brando was Napoleon, Michael Rennie was Bernadotte, Cameron Mitchell was Joseph Bonaparte and Merle Oberon was Josephine.

This is one of those 1950s (1954) super glossy CinemaScope pictures from 20th Century Fox.

It's not a great film, but OK and since the real Desiree's true story is quite extraordinary, it was interesting.

The actual woman is the ancestor of the current royalty of Sweden (and Norway, I believe) and the name "Desiree" is frequently used as a family name.

[quote]The actual woman is the ancestor of the current royalty of Sweden (and Norway, I believe) and the name "Desiree" is frequently used as a family name.

She was an all-around whore.

Why did she have a boy's name?

Dorothy Lamour, Faith Domergue and a few other Golden Age starlets were rumored to have black ancestry.

R100, because girls' names were very expensive and the family was very poor, Rose.

Lots of us are poor now so not many 'Merles' now. Not many boys called 'Oscar' now.

I think the name 'Oberon' is most beautiful.

Shakespeare gave it as the name of his king of the twilight world.

And Alexander Korda (who was surrounded by English scholars as well as Hungarians) made use of it for his weirdly-decorative but modestly-talented protégé named Estelle Thompson.

R102

lol Dorothy

I have always thought the name Merle Oberon was beautiful. ...Really neat.

Yes I think 'Oberon' is beautiful as a name and a word.

The first syllable is a perfect circle, the shape of our mouths when we experience a sense of wonder.

The second syllable is a 'bridging' syllable. It takes us OVER to another O, another wonder.

While the N brings us to a satisfactory conclusion. No wonder the poets and musicians enjoy the name.

Thank you all.

^ William, you have given us so much.

No one in the following 3 centuries can emulate you.

She was beautiful... I personally think that she's up there with Ava and Liz frankly. And she didn't have a receding hairline-she had a high forehead. She has also given some decent performances in films like LYDIA, A SONG TO REMEMBER, FIRST COMES COURAGE, (directed by lesbian Dorothy Arzner; she made a pass at Merle who more or less told her that she liked Bones in her fish)and her last decent forties film, TEMPTATION. She was supposed to be in MADAME BOVARY, but her nasty bout with cosmetic poisoning and sulfa drugs forced her to give it up. She had scars and a rash. It was shelved for several years until David O. Selznick brushed it off for his bride Jennifer Jones. Marlene Dietrich hated her. They were both up for THE GARDEN OF ALLAH with Gary Cooper. Marlene won out, but she resented Merle. So did Bette Davis. Warner gave Merle a short term contact and she was up for the lead in MR. SKEFFINGTON. Merle, like Fanny in the novel, was a great beauty, something that Bette wasn't. And I loved her as George Sand in ASTR. She's a campy delight in it. She and Cornel Wilde were so hot together. So no, she wasn't up there with Kate or Joan, but she was quite well known. She was always at events, and she loved men. She also did intelligence work for the Allies during the war. I find her life more fascinating than most of her films (THE COWBOY AND THE LADY is patently awful.), But with the right director she could be effective. Some of her films were on YouTube.

"...and he swore from next October on, she'd be famous as a cross between Patsy Kelly and Merle Oberon."

I'm surprised no one has mentioned her performance in "The Scarlet Pimpernel" from 1934. She does a fine Lady Blakeney to Leslie Howard's Blakeney. Also starred Raymond Massey and Nigel Bruce.

I also liked her in the 1967 "Hotel" where she played "The Duchess" with Michael Rennie playing her husband, the Duke.

Merle's scenes were mostly with Rennie and Richard Conte as a blackmailer that she negotiates with (rather than paying) to save her husband. She also has a brief scene with the movie's star Rod Taylor who played the hotel manager.

Merle looks great here. I think she was 56 at the time. She gets to wear some great clothes and I think she wears some items from her own jewelry collection.

Here's a picture of Merle from the movie.

HOTEL was a good picture... I also liked that trashy OF LOVE AND DESIRE. With Steve Cochran. She hit it. I think that she also had Rod Taylor.

Not sure if it's been mentioned --when Cochran died in 1965, on that boat crewed by young women, off the coast of Mexico, Oberon wanted a fuller investigation, and spent some money on that. Cochran was famous with the ladies.

Here is another picture from 1967's Hotel.

This is from a scene where she is meeting blackmailer Richard Conte and rather than agreeing to his demands, makes a deal with him in an attempt to save her husband.

Look at that brooch!

^ Look at that 'soft-focus'!

Cochran's first wife, Fay McKenzie, was born Feb. 19, 1918, and is still with us. She acted in silent films and in sound Westerns.

Merle certainly had no problem with her high forehead, as it was usually featured in her hairstyles over the decades. It's interesting to see her with the wispy bangs in r115. The bangs soften her face considerably.

A really gorgeous photo of Merle Oberon. I believe that it's by George Hurrell.

Yes she was a beauty alright. She was no Leigh, perhaps not even Taylor, but she sure could give Ava a good run for her money.

She had a big ass forehead

No she didn't

Nothing wrong with Merle. Korda wasted her career by using her as a bargaining chip to finance his other projects. He never helped her work on becoming a better actress.

And she never really demanded it either. Had she rocked the boat, he could have easily exposed the secret of her racial origins. I think that she would have been a better Madame Bovary than the fluttering Jennifer Jones, who really wasn't a much better actress than Merle but had the fortune of fucking David O. Selznick.

^ I don't know why you say "Jennifer Jones.. had the fortune of fucking David O. Selznick" when it was just the reverse.

Jones was a woman, an employee and a wife. She was dependent on him. How many films did she do without him?

Korda couldn't help Merle "work on becoming a better actress".

Merle wasn't very bright. You can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink. Korda helped Merle by increasing her dollar value by putting her in his best products with his best stars.

They all had the fortune of fucking David O. Selznick

R125 Who are you, HW? Are you a Lesbian?

I am a disgraced hollywood producer R126

OMG!! Are you the ghastly lumbering Hal Wallis?

[quote]R124 Merle wasn't very bright. You can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink. Korda helped Merle by increasing her dollar value by putting her in his best products with his best stars.

Additionally, many girls enter acting to become rich and famous. She had that as Korda's wife...so there wasn't a huge need to demand more.

We could have done with the post facelift films, and just stayed a society hostess...but I guess she had extra time on her hands.

R123 I think that she would have been a better Madame Bovary than the fluttering Jennifer Jones, who really wasn't a much better actress than Merle

Merele was too exotic looking to play a French peasant girl

But Jennifer Jones was good enough in that...also DOWN TO EARTH, LOVE LETTERS and CARRIE. And BEAT THE DEVIL.

Many of her other performances border on the side of [italic] meh, [/italic] though. She's not an awe-inspiring actress....but a decent one.

These women (and all movie actors) are nothing without the movie director telling them what to do.

Merle was fabulous in frilly period costumes but fairly poor appearing in modern clothes. Korda put her in this expensive color movie (below) and she is really annoying in it. She has no sense of comedy and the hero and audience want to slap her.

Merle Oberon raised a screaming ruckus because Laurence Olivier had some spittle fly out of his mouth while they were doing a scene in WUTHERING HEIGHTS. He asked her "For God's sake, what's a little spit between actors?"

What he was missing was she was no actress.

He later dismissed her as "a silly little amateur".

Larry was right. Merle was no more than a pretty, doll-like, mannequin

At least she was smart enough to marry the Mexican millionaire. Otherwise, she could have ended up in the Motion Picture Home.

I wonder about Merle's impressive-looking necklace. Was it an aqua-coloured fake?

All of Merle's Jewels are real. A friend in Beverly Hills Mother owns her diamond, 30 plus carats from Harry Winston, easily 5 million today. D flawless, not any of this Kardashian or Hilton nonsense stones that are big but nothing else. The Emerald necklace from Cartier sold for millions over 20 years ago. You can google it. She woe it to the Academy Awards. There is a youtube of her wearing it.

Dear Lord this is her emerald necklace!

Whatever she did to get herself into a position where she could buy jewels like that... it was worth it.

Olivier was hot as hell in WH. I barely noticed Merle.

Here's the clip from the 1973 Oscars where Merle presents a special award for The Poseidon Adventure.

Merle, however, has way overdone the plastic surgery here.

She is wearing the spectacular emerald necklace mentioned by R137.

Little known fact, Vivien Leigh the lady Olivier did all her great Shakespearien performances covered in spit.

Sir Alexander Korda became one of the richest producers in England, and Bruno Pagliai was one of the richest men in Italy and Mexico. Hence, les bijoux! Merle became very rich was the model for the actress Dawn Avalon in many of Michael Korda's books. Michael was her nephew by marriage. they were very close until Queenie came out, a thinly veiled portrait of her life.

Good for her, way to go Merle! Who needs to be raped to further a career when you can MARRY the Quasimodo! Euro stars do it better

^ Is that Anna Magnani? And who is Isabelle?

She, at one time, had the best collection of emeralds in the world, including this amazing Cartier necklace.

I thought her superb in Wuthering Heights. Leigh should have taken the offered role of Isabella, but refused.

Anna Karina, and Isabelle Huppert, longtime mistress of disgusting Daniel Toscan du Plantier CEO of Gaumont

The photo of Oberon at R144 with the gardenia (about 2/4 down is GORGEOUS!

From the link at R144

[quote]According to Antiquorum’s lot notes and AP reports, the necklace was made for Oberon in 1938; however, in the book “Hollywood Jewels” by Penny Proddow, Debra Healy and Marion Fasel, Oberon is quoted explaining to a reporter, who asked if it was designed by Elsa Schiaparelli, how she came to acquire the necklace:

[quote]“No, but she almost got it! I saw it in a Paris shop, and I went back a second time to look at it. The salesman said someone else was interested, but I only half believed him. The next time I went in, the necklace was not in the case. My mysterious rival had been looking at it in one of the little private rooms. Still I hesitated because the design was so exotic – so unlike the classic settings for precious stones. The next day I walked right by the shop, not intending to be tempted again, but Mme. Schiaparelli was just coming out. Instantly I knew why she had been there, and assumed she had the necklace right in her handbag. I must have looked my disappointment when I got back to the hotel, because Mr. Korda, in his direct way, put on his hat and went out. He walked across to the shop; the necklace was still there, and he bought it.” (p. 92)

I love r119 ‘s photo of Oberon. That fur cape was beautiful.

She made some good films even if all of them weren’t memorable. She was a working actress who married well and made good. I read about her touching affair with a handsome British RAF officer who had been horribly burned in the war. He felt ugly and disfigured. Merle, whose own face had been nearly destroyed by several incidents already mentioned here, understood his pain and they embarked on a brief but torrid affair. Giving him the booty restored his confidence. I think that is sweet.

Look at Vivien Leigh in R57 pic: Glued to her iPhone at a party. So rude.

The actor playing Caligula looks EXACTLY like Charles Busch in the rushes in R71 clip.

She was CONSTANTLY texting Larry..katherine Cornell said he was always vibrating on stage, but she assumed it was a plug.

The queen who played Caligula in R71 clip is pretty funny.

When told by the director (or someone) that Caligula should be played "almost sissy," the actor all but rolled his eyes saying when he went to get his costumes fit, he was given a couple hostess gowns and cocktail frocks.

I agree with speculation that Merle's accident was a convenient excuse to shut down a VERY expensive movie that was not going well.

Laughton sounds like a total pain in the ass to work with.

Say all you want about Oberon but she most definitely had star charisma. Olivier does not wipe her off the screen in WH and neither does Cooper in the Cowboy and the Lady.

She holds her own with them by her presence alone and she has an appealing and warm charm on film.

DL icon Kelly is a hoot in TCATL. Lucky to have seen her in NNN and Irene though at the time I didn't know much about her.

[quote]R139 Merle, however, has way overdone the plastic surgery here.

It appears no one backstage had a powder puff, either : (

R178, he died soon after in a plane crash.

r107, I am swooning over you.

What color were Merle's eyes?

Uh, brown?

Is Queenie worth reading?

R160 Queenie is not worth reading. It's just completely fictional soap suitable for women.

It offers no insight into Estelle Thompson's life.

Sir Alexander Korda surrounded himself with knowledgeable British scholars and writers (such as Graham Greene and Evelyn Waugh) but Queenie's author was just a New Yorker.

Have any of you DLers seen Merle Oberon in the musical “Folies Bergere” with Maurice Chevalier and Ann Sothern? The contrast in personas between the regal Oberon and fun, earthy Sothern seems intriguing.

That was remade as "That Night in Rio," with DL fave Alice Faye. Love Ann Sothern. I think Lucy claimed to have learned comic timing from her. Her first husband, Roger Pryor, was quite a hunk. She had a lovely singing voice and introduced "The Last Time I Saw Paris. "

^. Please don't veer off-topic from the lovely, regal, diamond-encrusted Miss Merle Oberon. We DON'T need another trashy Lucy thread.

R164 But there's only so much to say about Merle the Mild...

^ Well in that case we bring this thread to a respectful close.

She's exquisite at R119, despite having a dead animal draped around her face. Hurrell was the Master.

Her jewels were nothing compared to mine. And I was all white.

R7, she was her own grandmother.

Yes, r168, but you weren’t all female...

[quote] Merle was married to Bruno Pagliai, a super rich industrialist/ They lived in Acapulco in an incredible house called Galal. It was heavily featured in the media of the time. It's in an old Architectural Digest Book I have on Celebrity Homes.

According to a January 27, 1967 Life magazine article titled "In a Swinging Resort the Star is Merle Oberon" (a title which I borrowed for this blog post), Oberon and her husband built a real showplace of a home in Acapulco called El Ghalal, which is a Mexican-Indian phrase meaning "to love". The article also mentioned that Oberon, a real social butterfly, liked to end her evenings at a disco called Tequila á Go-Go. I think that is beyond fabulous, but it's also a story for another day. The Life article makes no mention of a home called La Consentida.

Fast forward to the 1977 book, Architectural Digest Celebrity Homes, which devotes a chapter to Oberon and Pagliai's home, this time referred to simply as Ghalál. The book refers to the home mostly in the past tense, noting that Oberon once shared the home with her former husband. So, I am assuming that when AD first ran photos of the home, the Oberon-Pagliai marriage was intact, but by the time the compilation book was published, the marriage was no more.

^. I was told that the place had thick fluffy white carpet and EVERY visitor had to take off their shoes to enter Merle's special domain.

Really kind of disheartening to see that so many gays can be as bigoted as "normal" people. To make skin color or ethnic heritage an issue, like OP did, just brings out the worst in people. It was the times and that was the only way she could get a successful career in movies. I see from the responses here that we haven't gotten over this kind of bullshit in the year 2018!

Dear R173 I suspect "skin color or ethnic heritage" is more of an issue to you than everyone else in this thread. This isn't a very serious thread. Estelle Thompson (Merle O.) wasn't a serious actress, she was a 'clothes horse'.

I have no serious interest in jewellery because I'm not a woman.

But her 1938 Cartier Emerald necklace looks both fabulous and clunky at the same time. It looks as though the emeralds are in their natural, irregular shape.

^. I guess it's personal taste; some like the clunky "cabochon' look. I prefer they be cut into a more pleasing regular shape which REFLECTS light.

And it seems crude that they drilled an ugly metal rod through each emerald to ensure security.

Her pussy stank. Bad!

[quote] ^. I was told that the place had thick fluffy white carpet and EVERY visitor had to take off their shoes to enter Merle's special domain.

Perhaps she did have white carpet in other areas of the house.

I'm sorry, that necklace may look grand to some- but to me it looks like something Wilma Flintstone would wear.

Love Miss Oberon. Stunning woman. Rejected the romantic overtures of director Dorothy Arzner, who helmed her in a war drama FIRST COMES COURAGE. But Merle did fuck her costar Brian Aherne.

R179, are you R123? Are you a woman?

I don't know anyone else who'd say that tiny 5 foot Merle could "fuck" her employer and "fuck" Brian Aherne who was well over six foot high with superior strength.

It goes against the tenets of the English language that a vagina can "fuck" a man.

Brian Aherne was smokin hot

^ But he didn't get many chances to show it off.

Brian Aherne needs his own thread. He is ready. Brian Aherne being strangely attracted to beautiful young man in Sylvia Scarlett is worth a thousand threads. Is he not bare chested too in that one?

R180, are you nuts? Of course a woman, even a small one, can fuck a man. You sound deranged.

Merle is very good in The Dark Angel and The Scarlet Pimpernel. I believe she and Leslie Howard were having an affair when they made the latter.

. . . .

R180 = Milo Yiannopolous.

R183 Cary is bare chested but Brian gets Babe Paley

A group photograph of three retirees that manages to be unflattering to all three of them

Not to nitpick, but I cannot help it: Ava Gardner didn't sing in "Show Boat." Annette Warren's vocals were used. Ava did, however, sing two songs on the official soundtrack. And before anyone else says it - I know, I know....Mary!

Merle looks like she's black.

She was very pretty. So was Brando’s ex, Anna Kashfi.

R189 Ava can be seen singing the role on Youtube. She has a small voice and her lungs are encased inside a killing corset.

It would have been rather pathetic with poor Estelle Merle Thompson in the role because she has a tiny body, no lungs at all and she can barely articulate with her very tight lips.

Is she mulatto?

No, for fuck's sake, not everything is about you Americans and slavery. Merle was part Sri Lankan and part Maori

[quote]R194 not everything is about you Americans and slavery.

but, we're natives of India basically under slavery during colonization?

R195 The people in the various provinces of India had their own intricate system of kings, caste, slave-buyers, and 'untouchables' well before the British brought education, sanitation, railways and sensible management.

R188 Russel and Garson have never been considered pretty have they? I think Merle is vert pretty in that pic. I like Merle Oberon she was beautiful and very good in wuthering heights. She even makes Olivier watchable.

R197 I know I shouldn't get off the topic from little Estelle Merle Thompson but MGM considered Garson to be pretty.

Look at MGM's slogan advertising how this white woman "GOT" Clark Gable, their biggest 'Cock O' The Walk' star.

R150 and R152, that’s Emlyn Williams as Caligula.

^ Emlyn Williams could have been a household name but his career as a writer allowed him to take odd movie roles playing cads and psychopaths. He wrote 'Night Must Fall' and 'The Corn Is Green' and discovered Dick Burton.

This the prettiest picture I've found of him (and it includes his 'beard' of a wife)

I can't believe that they picked Mia Sara to play Queenie. She's okay, but not a spellbinding beauty like Queenie/Merle was.

Yes, R201, "spellbinding".

She looked more cheechee as she aged.

Is she mulatto?

Yes, R204. Estelle was a half-caste who pretended to be everything that she wasn't.

And her face was destroyed by a Mexican who was pretending to be a plastic surgeon.

R188, Roz was quite attractive in her youth, with luscious dark hair and a lanky, athletic build. But her struggles with rheumatoid arthritis and breast cancer, along with the medicines required for both maladies, too a toll on her looks. Greer Garson was just pale and horsey looking.

This current-day mulatto bimbo has the same egg-shaped, recessive forehead as 'Estelle'.

Mulattimbo is the correct way to describe the person in the above photograph. Thank you.

I know it's ghoulish watching these newsreels and seeing how the stars of yesteryear have desiccated into a state of geriatry.

There's Noël, looking rather lame, and Celia, Johnny and Alec. And there's Estelle— flown in from Acapulco— for what I assume was her last big public appearance.

You can see her surgery scars at 1.59 and 2.10.

And there, at 2.14, are those two stars (mentioned at R132) who shared their spittle three decades previously.

I dedicate this sad last picture of Estelle in her final days to R123, R179 and R184 who believe that the late star was a sexual aggressor.

That will become my new avatar, somewhere [bold]: )[/bold]

I think she's accosting some young [italic]gendarme[/italic] with a sword she keeps in her cane, demanding, "Fuck me, [italic]NOW!"[/italic]

R203, I remember that word from "Bhowani Junction " (1953?). Ava Gardner plays an Indian "half caste" in that and at one point angrily uses that term about herself. It was filmed in India, in color, and she's very good (Cukor directed ).

I think there was some conflict in the production of A STAR IS BORN because Cukor was preparing the Gardner film while shooting the Garland one, and his mind was really on that. Or something.

R51, Still very common in many parts of the world for girls to be married as soon as they reach puberty, if not before. Proven fact. The average age of 1st menses is much, much younger in warmer climates. Not unheard of for 10-year-old girls to become pregnant.

DL may not realize it but there's always been a bias for actresses with light-colored eyes. Yes I was told this by my very 1st agent. Mine are hazel-green and naturally look very bright sea-green on film. Traditionally women who look Mid Western are urged to Anglicize their name or face the fact that they will lose roles. There are those today who still make assumptions of how one looks based on their name.

That's a man's name. Why does she have a man's name?

You mean Merle Norman the makeup bitch?

R216 We're discussing Merle Streep.

I thought it was Merle Haggard.

It's not about Merle Dixon??

I [italic]thought[/italic] this was all sounding kind'a fruity....

Because, R215, her ethnicity wasn't the only thing "she" lied about.

Half Breed, that's all I ever heard!

^ That's all we'll ever hear. Estelle went into her grave with her face permanently contorted into a rictus grin by the surgeons who did exactly as they were bade to do.

(I've been watching some of her appearances on "Four Star Playhouse" from the early 50s on Youtube. They're small little dramas and her poor face is already stricken with the strain of constant play-acting)

Merle looks pretty good in the Noel Coward Birthday film clip.

^ I thought she looked gaga.

She was 'flown in from Acapulco' to act as Noel's "beard" for the formal after-dinner speeches (while his real husbands were fluttering about in the background).

Merle loved sex too and was a bit of a slutty size queen! For that alone she should be a Datalounge icon.

Estelle showed off her wan panties in 'The Lodger'.

The sight of her skinny shanks and flat 'mons' sent Jack the Ripper into a lustful frenzy that could only result in death.

R76 I'm highly suspicious about the tragic cancellation of 'I Claudius'.

It had the brilliant Laughton and Robson. It had the enormous sets made on the enormous Denham Sound Stage. The injured Estelle could have been easily replaced by Marlene Dietrich who was there at Denham at the same time filming that equally interesting film 'Knight Without Armour' with Robert Donat. Or she could have been replaced by Tamara Desni who was another of Korda's 'exotic' contract stars. And more importantly 'I Claudius' co-starred that clever gay writer/actor Emlyn Williams in a wonderful 'sissy' role.

R226 'Mons' is an unattractive word. The dictionary says females have a 'mons veneris' (or "Mount of Venus") above their pubic bone.

[quote]R225 Merle loved sex too and was a bit of a slutty size queen! For that alone she should be a Datalounge icon.

I've just never heard anything kind or original about her, unfortunately. She's basically Candy Spelling...tho prettier.

I'm all white!

Better than candy.

Estelle Thompson was a raggy little female.

Her name was fake.

Her face was fake.

Her voice and backstory was fake.

Was she mulatto?

R232 Yes, she was the 20th century's Queen of Mulatto. Princess Meegan Markie is the 21st century's Queen of Mulatto.

Threads like this are why I love DL. Over 230 posts about MERLE OBERON.

Estelle Thomposon is more interesting than Arlene Francis.

I don't think Estelle ever dared do Legitimate Theatre.

Ooo, I tried to watch her tonight playing Empress Josephine opposite a somnolent Brando in a plotless movie called 'Desirée'.

She only appears in five scenes and is as limp as ever but she does wearing the requisite bling.

Yeah, but Arlene was never ashamed of her heritage.

R237 I do wish you fans of Arline Francis Kazanjian would start your own thread

Other than Wuthering Heights and the heavily fictionalized Chopin bio, what other memorable films did she make?

These Three, a sanitized version of Lillian Hellman's The Children's Hour.

She made some good films but most were modest matinee type films.

I tried to watch the Cowboy one with Gary Cooper and only lasted ten minutes; awful.

R239, "The Scarlet Pimpernel" was good. Also a Lubitsch comedy, "That Uncertain Feeling." And hyper-romantic "Lydia," with great Edna May Oliver.

Wash she a mulatto?

Selznick really wanted her for Gone With the Wind but Oberon felt that Mammy was too small a part.

LOL R244!

some passed easier than others

BUMP.

Love her despite her lack of depth as an actress.

Was she mulatto?

No, Eurasian

Merle's green jewels were prettier than this Russian-looking so-called Greville Emerald.

Merle was a whore, darlin'. Of course she would have great jewels.

She was not a whore...she just knew who to fuck.

R239 I like her in the Scarlet Pimpernel with Leslie Howard. She was quite beautiful in that film.

She was quite beautiful in period films in elaborate frilly costumes which harmonised with all those curves in her face. But she looks inept and barren in contemporary clothes in this awful screwball comedy (directed by an American).

reply 47. The woman with Joel McRae was Veronica Lake in one of her first films. It shows!

R47 Mother told me that Veronica Lake's peek-a-boo dangling tendrils created a sensation in the '40s.

Veronica must have been a style influence on this woman.

Was she mulatto?

Mulatto only applies to those of mixed Caucasian and sub-Saharan African ancestry. Merle was Eurasian.

Hey, this thread had few greyed-out posts six months ago but they have been restored!

Queen Merle lives on!

[quote]r252 She was not a whore...she just knew who to fuck.

I read she really WAS a call girl when she was a poor unknown.

And why not?

People are so racist and cruel on this thread! Pointless bitchery I guess....

I forget if it was in his memoir or a story he told on Merv Griffin but Michael Korda said Oberon's plane once landed in Tasmania and it was surrounded by reporters on the tarmac and people holding signs saying Welcome Home Merle. She was so unnerved that she demanded the pilot take off again.

Bumping for more

Merle appeared as a guest star in the mid-1940s with Abbott and Costello on their radio program. She was a hoot and obviously enjoyed playing silly with Bud and Lou... you can hear the joy in her voice.

She actually looks like Tia carteret who turns 57 today.

*Carrere. Damn autocorrect

Merle was very good in the 1955 TV adaptation of Noel Coward's CAVALCADE, co-starring with Michael Wilding. It surface a few years back, I think on TCM.

[Quote]Was she mulatto?

No, that was Dinah Shore.

Her geometrically generous forehead was adequate for projecting special showings of all her films, sometimes more than one at a time.