Eurasian-American actress who appeared in over 20 films including “The Private Life of Henry VIII,” 1933, “Over The Moon,” 1937, “The Divorce of Lady X,” 1938 and who was nominated for an Academy Award for best actress in “Dark Angel,” 1935. Best known for her role as Cathy in the Hollywood film “Wuthering Heights,” she also played opposite Lawrence Olivier’s ‘Heathcliff,’ in 1939.
Due to the prejudices of the time, young Estelle Thompson was forced to conceal her mixed ancestry in order to make her way in society or show business. Raised in India, she was a local beauty at age 16. She moved to London the following year to launch a career as a cabaret singer under the name Queenie O’Brien while she appeared in bit parts in several films.
After her cinematic debut in England as Anne Boleyn in “The Private Life of Henry VIII,” director Alexander Korda convinced her to change her name, to get a Hollywood contract and to be his wife. When Oberon agreed on all conditions, she spent the next 12 years under contract to MGM and divided her time between England and Hollywood, appearing in over 12 films. She flaunted her classic beauty and rewrote her background under the successful camouflage of being the well-bred daughter of a British army officer in Tasmania. “It was exceedingly clever of Merle to pick Tasmania as her birthplace, but then she was an extremely intelligent woman – no one had ever been there and no one was likely to go there. Although I understand and sympathize with Merle, the childhood she really had must have been infinitely more interesting than the one she invented.” When her nephew Michael Korda wrote his family memoir “Charmed Lives” in 1979 and revealed Oberon’s roots, she cut him out of her will.
Oberon made four marriages. The first, to British director-producer Alexander Korda in 1939 ended in divorce six years later. She next wed cameraman Lucien Ballard from 1945 – 1949, followed by industrialist Bruno Pagliai, from 1957-1963. Her fourth marriage in 1975 was to 15-year-younger Robert Wolders. At the time, she already had two kids from previous marriages. Friendly, good-natured and generous, she was also a poor businesswoman.
When screen roles became sporadic in the ’50s, Oberon debuted on TV, hosting the series “Assignment Foreign Legion.” After her final film, “Interval,” in 1973, Oberon retired to a quiet life in Malibu, CA, where she died of a massive stroke on 11/23/1979.
Link to Wikipedia biography