Merle Oberon

Merle Oberon is one of those Golden Age Hollywood figures who deserves far more attention than she tends to get today. Born in Bombay in 1911 and raised in colonial India, she reinvented herself in British cinema and then crossed the Atlantic to become a genuine leading lady in 1930s and 1940s Hollywood — which, for a woman of mixed Sri Lankan Burgher heritage in that era, was a remarkable and complicated achievement. Her turn opposite Laurence Olivier in Wuthering Heights (1939) is still electric, and her Oscar nomination for The Dark Angel (1935) shows she was no mere ornament. She was also quietly one of the savvier survivors in an industry that chewed people up. The way she navigated questions about her origins — having to obscure her background for decades just to work — makes her story feel both deeply sad and genuinely fascinating.

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Name (English)

Merle Oberon

Name (Japanese)

マール・オベロン

Reading

まーる・おべろん

Born

February 19, 1911 – November 23, 1979

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Pisces / Boar

Origin

Mumbai, Bombay State, India

Occupation

screenwriter / film actor / actor

Awards & achievements

• star on Hollywood Walk of Fame

• Wikipedia (English)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merle%20Oberon
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%9E%E3%83%BC%E3%83%AB%E3%83%BB%E3%82%AA%E3%83%99%E3%83%AD%E3%83%B3
• Wikidatahttps://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q230958

Tags

• Bombay State
• screenwriter
• film actor
• actor

Last updated

2026-06-02

Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.