Merle Oberon

For most of her life, Merle protected herself by concealing the truth about her parentage, claiming that she had been born in Tasmania, Australia,[5] and that her birth records had been destroyed in a fire.

She was raised as the daughter of Arthur Terrence O'Brien Thompson, a British mechanical engineer from Darlington who worked in Indian Railways[6] and his wife, Charlotte Selby, a Eurasian from Ceylon (Sri Lanka). Her mother also had Māori ancestry.[7] However, according to her birth certificate, Merle's biological mother was Charlotte's then-12-year-old daughter, Constance. Charlotte had herself given birth to Constance at the age of 14, the result of rape by Henry Alfred Selby, the Anglo-Irish foreman of a tea plantation.[7] To avoid scandal, Charlotte raised Merle as Constance's half-sister.[1][8]

Constance eventually married Alexander Soares and had four other children: Edna, Douglas, Harry, and Stanislaus (Stan). Edna and Douglas moved to the UK at an early age. Stanislaus was the only child to keep his father's surname of Soares and resided in Surrey, British Columbia, Canada. Harry eventually moved to Toronto, Canada, retaining Charlotte’s maiden name, Selby. When Harry tracked down Merle's birth certificate in Indian government records in Bombay, he was surprised to discover that he was in fact Merle's half-brother, not her nephew. He attempted to visit her in Los Angeles, but she refused to see him. Harry withheld that information from Oberon's biographer Charles Higham and eventually revealed it only to Maree Delofski, the creator of the 2002 documentary The Trouble with Merle, produced by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, which investigated the various conflicting versions of Merle's origin.[8]

New Zealand author Witi Ihimaera uses Oberon's hidden South Asian and Maori heritage as the inspiration for the novel White Lies,[9][10] which was turned into the 2013 movie White Lies.[11]

In 1914, when Merle was 3, Arthur Thompson joined the British Army and later died of pneumonia on the Western Front during the Battle of the Somme.[12] Merle and Charlotte led an impoverished existence in shabby flats in Bombay for a few years. Then, in 1917, they moved to better circumstances in Calcutta (present-day Kolkata).[13] Oberon received a foundation scholarship to attend La Martiniere Calcutta for Girls, one of the best private schools in Calcutta.[13] There, she was constantly taunted for her mixed ethnicity, eventually leading her to quit school and receive lessons at home.[14]

Oberon first performed with the Calcutta Amateur Dramatic Society. She was also completely enamored with films and enjoyed going out to nightclubs. Indian journalist Sunanda K. Datta-Ray claimed 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.[15]

In Firpo's in 1929, Merle met a former actor, Colonel Ben Finney, and dated him;[16] however, when he saw Charlotte one night at her flat, he realized Oberon was of mixed ancestry and ended the relationship.[16] 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,[16] which she readily did.[16] After packing all their belongings and moving to France, Oberon and her mother found that their supposed benefactor avoided them,[17] although he had left a good word for Oberon with Ingram at the studios in Nice.[17] Ingram liked Oberon's exotic appearance and quickly hired her to be an extra in a party scene in a film named The Three Passions.[18]

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 had an on-again, off-again affair with actor John Wayne from 1938 to 1947.

Oberon became Lady Korda when her husband was knighted in 1942 by George VI for his contribution to the war effort.[28] At the time, the couple was based at Hills House in Denham, England. She divorced him in 1945 to marry 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".[29] 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. 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.[30]

To avoid prejudice over her mixed background, Oberon created a "cover story" of being born and raised in Tasmania, Australia, and her birth records being destroyed in a fire. The story eventually unravelled after her death.[31] Oberon is known to have been to Australia only twice.[32] Her first visit was in 1965, on a film promotion. Another visit, to Hobart, was scheduled, but after journalists in Sydney pressed her for details of her early life, she became ill and shortly afterwards left for Mexico.[32]

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 to save face went ahead with the celebration. 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.[32]

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