Background
Ethnicity:
Oberon claimed that she was born and raised in Tasmania, Australia. The fact that no birth or school records could be found to prove this was explained by another fabrication: all records had been destroyed in a fire. She maintained these fictions throughout her professional life. Yet there are still many people in Tasmania who claim to have known Oberon as a child. They insist she was the illegitimate daughter of a woman named Lottie Chintock from St. Helens.
Estelle Merle Thompson was born in Bombay, British India on 19 February 1911. According to some sources, her birth name was Estelle Merle O'Brien Thompson. Merle was given "Queenie" as a nickname, in honour of Queen Mary, who visited India along with King George V in 1911. Oberon obscured her parentage. Some sources claim Merle's parents as Arthur Terrence O'Brien Thompson and Charlotte Selby. Others claim Merle's parents as Arthur Terrence O'Brien Thompson and Constance Selby(a daughter of Charlotte Selby). In 1914, Arthur Thompson joined the British Army and later died of pneumonia on the Western Front during the Battle of the Somme. Merle, with her "mother" (really her grandmother), led an impoverished existence in shabby Bombay flats for a few years. Then, in 1917, they moved to better circumstances in Calcutta
Education
Oberon received a foundation scholarship to attend La Martiniere Calcutta for Girls, one of the best private schools in Calcutta. There, she was constantly taunted for her unconventional parentage and eventually quit school and had her lessons at home.
Career
Oberon first performed with the Calcutta Amateur Dramatic Society. Merle began her career in British films with mostly forgettable roles or bit parts. She appeared in an uncredited role in Alf's Button(1930). However, movie moguls eventually saw an an untapped talent in their midst and began grooming Merle for something bigger. Finally she landed a part with substance: the role of Ysobel d'Aunay in Men of Tomorrow (1933). That was quickly followed by The Private Life of Henry VIII. (1933). After her portrayal of Lady Marguerite Blakeney in The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934), Hollywood beckoned and she left to try her hand in US films. With her nomination for an Academy Award for Best Actress as Kitty Vane in The Dark Angel (1935), Merle became a star in both Britain and the US. Then she appeared in several well received films, such as These Three (1936),Over the Moon (1939) and The Divorce of Lady X (1938). Her most critically acclaimed performance--hailed by some critics as "masterful"--was as Cathy Linton in Wuthering Heights (1939). After her role in Berlin Express (1948) she would not be seen on the screen again until four years later, as Elizabeth Rockwell in Pardon My French (1951). She was off the screen again for more than a year, returning in Désirée (1954). There were no films for her in 1955, only one in 1956 and then none until Of Love and Desire (1963). In between she did appear on television as host of the TV series "Assignment Foreign Legion" (1956). Her final film was Interval (1973).
Views
Quotations:
Without security it is difficult for a woman to look or feel beautiful.
Even when I was single, I owned homes and gardens. I buy beauty when other women buy jewels. Land is security to me. I need gardens that are mine to walk on.