The other day, I watched Wuthering Heights for the first time in years, and realized that I knew nothing about the stunning Merle Oberon. I Googled about a bit and saw that she had had a very interesting life. I’d like to read a good biography of her; can anyone recommend one? If a quality bio has not been written about her, I wish Eve would do one.
Thanks, pug, but my plate is full for the next few years . . . There’s only been one bio of her, Princess Merle (1983), by Roy Moseley and Chas. Higham, both better writers than I. Jim Parish’s The Glamour Girls (1975) also has an excellent, all-encompassing chaopter on Merle Oberon (as well as on Vera Hruba Ralston, Joan Bennett, Yvonne De Carlo, Rita Hayworth, Audrey Hepburn, Jennifer Jones, Maria Montez and Kim Novak.
You can find either of them, cheap, on bookfinder.com .
Back in the late 70s or so, Rich Little–possibly the greatest impressionist of all time–had a variety program. At one part of the show, he would solicit audience recommendations of impressions to do. Someone shouted out “Merle Oberon!” He kinda giggled and shook his head repeating, “Merle Oberon?!”
Then he went on to someone else.
Thanks, Eve, we found a used Princess Merle through bookfinder.com and it’s ordered. Should be a fascinating read.
Not a biography, but the novel QUEENIE by Michael Korda is based on the life of Merle Oberon. Korda was the nephew of Oberon’s first husband and a large theme of his novel, and of Oberon’s life, is the hiding of her Indian ancestry. (There is a movie based on the novel based on the star at the hole on the bottom of the sea.)
Trivia: Her much younger widower, Robert Wolders, became the much younger common-law widower of Audrey Hepburn. Most people who knew her assumed he was a gold digger because of the age difference and her fortune but later completely reversed their opinions, coming to believe he genuinely loved her.