Classic movie site with rare images, original ads, and behind-the-scenes photos, with informative and insightful commentary. We like to have fun with movies!
Archive and Links
grbrpix@aol.com
Search Index Here




Monday, February 20, 2006



Monday's Glamour Starter --- Merle Oberon

A friend of mine from school used to be a dedicated fan of Merle Oberon. He thought she was sheer perfection. Back in the late sixties, he’d order stills of her from Movie Star News in Manhattan, and when her movies turned up at 4:00 a.m. on some obscure New Jersey TV station, he’d either stay up all night, or set his alarm, to see them. When Hotel surfaced at a local drive-in around 1968, he celebrated his recent acquisition of a driver’s license to go there alone, during a rainstorm, to watch his idol. Because his windshield wipers tended to obstruct a clear view of Merle, he got out and stood beside his car to watch the show, all the while holding his umbrella to guard against the elements. Now that story is by way of illustrating just how powerful an effect some of these actresses had in their day. For my friend, at least, the Magic Of Merle reached years beyond her own era of prominence, for she was well into semi-retirement when he first discovered her. Merle’s biggest problem lay in the fact that she didn’t make many important pictures. If you take away Wuthering Heights, the woman’s pretty well stripped naked. I personally like Divorce Of Lady X, Lydia, A Song To Remember, and a few others --- and of course, The Lodger is an all-time favorite. Now if they had put Merle’s real-life story on the screen, that would have really been something. As a matter of fact, they did tell it once --- in the TV movie, Queenie --- which was actually a fictionalized story suggested by her life.



Good luck trying to figure out the origins of Merle Oberon. All evidence suggests she didn’t even know all of truth. One thing was certain. This woman had lots to hide about her background, especially in a day when uncertain racial origin could erase a career. Oberon was still dishing fiction about her beginnings right to the end, way beyond a point where it mattered. That was 1978, when she was invited "back" to her supposed birthplace in Hobart, Tasmania, hosts alarmed to find no record of Oberon having been born in Hobart. Local press took a close interest, and Miss Oberon beat  hasty retreat back home, avoiding inquiry that awaited her now-cancelled appearances. Within a year she was dead, having withdrawn from public life with her last husband, much younger actor Robert Wolders. Some Australian producers later got interested in her story, exposing more of a spider's web re those early years. It had been rumored she was "half-caste", with an Anglo father and an Indian mother. Merle had brought a dark-skinned personal maid when Hollywood beckoned, and yes, it was Mother assuming that role for what was left of her lifetime. Merle had grown up on the "shabby streets of Bombay," had lived by wits, or off largesse of wealthy men, from early on. She was "Queenie O’Brien" in club hostess days. Further myth claimed she actually came of Chinese heritage, a "Lottie Chintock" the actual birth-mother. There might too have been a sister who turned out to be the mother, plus two or three possibilities for the the father (a certainty: Merle was born out of wedlock). 



This still at top shows 
irresistible Merle disrupting staid life of  Laurence Olivier in an Alexander Korda comedy, The Divorce Of Lady X, of interest because both look fine in Technicolor, Olivier haughty and priggish as I  prefer him at this stage of a long career. They would re-team in the same year’s Wuthering Heights, accounts saying Larry was mean because he preferred Vivien Leigh to play opposite him. Olivier could be priggish in that first decade of screen work, as he'd readily admit during elder statesman interviews. The lush color portrait is from Lydia, a woman’s story she did (also for Korda) in 1941. Mainstream hits like The Lodger and (especially) A Song To Remember kept Oberon's name afloat through the 40's, but a following decade would find her treading water on television, a fate dealt to any number of stars on a wane. She is with Tom Conway above in something called Assignment: Foreign Legion. Oberon married well and didn't need the money, was a social success among international jet-setters, and by all evidence a popular hostess. She probably had as spectacular a jump from humble beginnings as anyone who worked in movies, having more than perfected the art of concealment with regard background and parentage. She lived, then died, just short of changed times where that no longer would matter.   




 

7 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Just think--the original Bollywood star.

9:39 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Ben Feingold, president of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment will never release any of these classics. I'm shocked that the Keaton set got past that man. He needs to go.

12:13 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Merle's story is amazing, I did read once that she used to have acid peels on her face quite often, and once she was scarred and it tooks months for her to return to movies. Don't know if it's true, but her story is so fantastic and any extras are like dollops on the cake. I loved her a Kathy in Wuthering Heights.

8:45 PM  
Blogger Michael said...

Merle Oberon was probably the least capable actress at her level of stardom ever, though. And what was with always emphasizing her enormous forehead? She looks like she's playing John Quincy Adams in that one shot....

10:12 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Merle Oberon was also an Academy Award nominated actress. She had received a nomination for Best Actress, for her performance in the 1935 movie, "The Dark Angel". And I also loved her in "Wuthering Heights".

1:15 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Ah, but I think you also failed to mention, dear boy, one of the Lady's very best -- also for Goldwyn -- 'These Three' -- She'd make anyone stand outside -- with or without umbrella! (Thanks again for the kind words)R.J.

1:41 AM  
Blogger 2 Sticks of Butter said...

Merle was a gorgeous and capable actress, under the right direction...haters seem to be everywhere, but I love her and I think she had one of the most exquisite faces in film. Don't make fun of her forehead - it was aristocratic looking.

10:17 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home

grbrpix@aol.com
  • December 2005
  • January 2006
  • February 2006
  • March 2006
  • April 2006
  • May 2006
  • June 2006
  • July 2006
  • August 2006
  • September 2006
  • October 2006
  • November 2006
  • December 2006
  • January 2007
  • February 2007
  • March 2007
  • April 2007
  • May 2007
  • June 2007
  • July 2007
  • August 2007
  • September 2007
  • October 2007
  • November 2007
  • December 2007
  • January 2008
  • February 2008
  • March 2008
  • April 2008
  • May 2008
  • June 2008
  • July 2008
  • August 2008
  • September 2008
  • October 2008
  • November 2008
  • December 2008
  • January 2009
  • February 2009
  • March 2009
  • April 2009
  • May 2009
  • June 2009
  • July 2009
  • August 2009
  • September 2009
  • October 2009
  • November 2009
  • December 2009
  • January 2010
  • February 2010
  • March 2010
  • April 2010
  • May 2010
  • June 2010
  • July 2010
  • August 2010
  • September 2010
  • October 2010
  • November 2010
  • December 2010
  • January 2011
  • February 2011
  • March 2011
  • April 2011
  • May 2011
  • June 2011
  • July 2011
  • August 2011
  • September 2011
  • October 2011
  • November 2011
  • December 2011
  • January 2012
  • February 2012
  • March 2012
  • April 2012
  • May 2012
  • June 2012
  • July 2012
  • August 2012
  • September 2012
  • October 2012
  • November 2012
  • December 2012
  • January 2013
  • February 2013
  • March 2013
  • April 2013
  • May 2013
  • June 2013
  • July 2013
  • August 2013
  • September 2013
  • October 2013
  • November 2013
  • December 2013
  • January 2014
  • February 2014
  • March 2014
  • April 2014
  • May 2014
  • June 2014
  • July 2014
  • August 2014
  • September 2014
  • October 2014
  • November 2014
  • December 2014
  • January 2015
  • February 2015
  • March 2015
  • April 2015
  • May 2015
  • June 2015
  • July 2015
  • August 2015
  • September 2015
  • October 2015
  • November 2015
  • December 2015
  • January 2016
  • February 2016
  • March 2016
  • April 2016
  • May 2016
  • June 2016
  • July 2016
  • August 2016
  • September 2016
  • October 2016
  • November 2016
  • December 2016
  • January 2017
  • February 2017
  • March 2017
  • April 2017
  • May 2017
  • June 2017
  • July 2017
  • August 2017
  • September 2017
  • October 2017
  • November 2017
  • December 2017
  • January 2018
  • February 2018
  • March 2018
  • April 2018
  • May 2018
  • June 2018
  • July 2018
  • August 2018
  • September 2018
  • October 2018
  • November 2018
  • December 2018
  • January 2019
  • February 2019
  • March 2019
  • April 2019
  • May 2019
  • June 2019
  • July 2019
  • August 2019
  • September 2019
  • October 2019
  • November 2019
  • December 2019
  • January 2020
  • February 2020
  • March 2020
  • April 2020
  • May 2020
  • June 2020
  • July 2020
  • August 2020
  • September 2020
  • October 2020
  • November 2020
  • December 2020
  • January 2021
  • February 2021
  • March 2021
  • April 2021
  • May 2021
  • June 2021
  • July 2021
  • August 2021
  • September 2021
  • October 2021
  • November 2021
  • December 2021
  • January 2022
  • February 2022
  • March 2022
  • April 2022
  • May 2022
  • June 2022
  • July 2022
  • August 2022
  • September 2022
  • October 2022
  • November 2022
  • December 2022
  • January 2023
  • February 2023
  • March 2023
  • April 2023
  • May 2023
  • June 2023
  • July 2023
  • August 2023
  • September 2023
  • October 2023
  • November 2023
  • December 2023
  • January 2024
  • February 2024
  • March 2024