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Merle Oberon Parents: Meet Charlotte And Arthur

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Merle Oberon parents-British actress, Merle Oberon, born Estelle Merle O’Brien Thompson was born on February 19th, 1911 in Bombay, British India in England.

The moniker “Queenie” was given to Merle in honor of Queen Mary, who traveled to India in 1911 with King George V.

When Merle was 3 years old, Arthur Thompson enlisted in the British Army. He subsequently succumbed to illness on the Western Front during the Battle of the Somme. Merle and Charlotte spent a few years living in dire poverty in run-down apartments in Bombay.

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 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.

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Merle Oberon career

At the age of 17, Oberon made his first trip to England in 1928. Using the alias Queenie O’Brien, she worked as a club hostess and appeared in a number of movies in small or uncredited roles.

She was cast as Anne Boleyn in The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933), alongside Charles Laughton, in a tiny but pivotal part under the name Merle Oberon, which gave her film career a significant boost.

She was soon offered starring roles, including Lady Blakeney in The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934), alongside Leslie Howard, who she dated for a period after the movie’s commercial success.

Her friendship with and then marriage to Korda helped Oberon’s career. Producer Samuel Goldwyn received “shares” of her contract from him in exchange for providing her with posh rides around Hollywood.

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The Black Angel (1935), a Goldwyn production, gave Oberon her lone nomination for an Academy Award for Best Actress. She reportedly planned to be married to David Niven around this period and had a serious relationship with him; however, he proved unfaithful.

She was chosen to play Messalina in Korda’s 1937 film I, Claudius, but the project was shelved due to her injuries sustained in a car accident.

She then went on to play George Sand in A Song to Remember (1945), Empress Josephine in Désirée, and Cathy in the critically acclaimed 1939 picture Wuthering Heights, with Laurence Olivier (1954).

Oberon’s complexion reportedly degraded around 1940 as a result of cosmetic poisoning and an adverse response to sulfa medicines, according to Princess Merle, the biography by Charles Higham and Roy Moseley.

She underwent multiple dermabrasion surgeries at a skin specialist’s office in New York City after Alexander Korda recommended her. Her face had developed noticeable pits and indents that couldn’t be covered up by cosmetics, thus the results were only partially successful.

Who are Merle Oberon’s parents?

Oberon was born to Charlotte Selby and Arthur Terrence O’Brien Thompson. She shares the same parents with her sister, Constance Thompson.

Source: www.Ghgossip.com

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Kary Bruening

Update: 2024-05-01