Love, Queenie: Merle Oberon, Hollywood’s First South Asian Star

Film critic Sen (Taste Makers) delivers a moving biography of Merle Oberon (1911–1979), the first actor of color nominated for an Academy Award (Best Actress, for 1935’s The Dark Angel). Growing up in poverty in Calcutta, Oberon found escape at the movies and moved to London at age 18 to become an actor. The fledgling production company London Films took interest in her but insisted she disguise her racial heritage to improve her commercial prospects, telling the press that she was born to white European parents in Tasmania. After making a name for herself as the studio’s “resident so-called exotic,” Oberon moved to Hollywood in 1934, where she met with cruelty and prejudice. For instance, David Niven, her Dark Angel costar and lover, refused to marry her because of her lower-class Indian background, and Laurence Olivier called her an “amateur little bitch” during one of their blistering fights on the set of 1939’s Wuthering Heights. Though Sen covers the tragic elements of Oberon’s story (she endured a barrage of cosmetic procedures, including skin bleaching at the behest of her studio, in an effort to overcome Hollywood’s ageism and racism), he emphasizes the stirring determination she showed in scrapping her way to the film industry’s upper echelon. It’s a poignant account of the sacrifices that enabled an extraordinary career. Photos. (Mar.)