Merle Oberon: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 01:15, 22 December 2005

Revision as of 01:16, 22 December 2005

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On February 19, [[1911]], Estelle Merle O'Brien Thompson was born in [[Bombay]], India (now [[Mumbai]]). Her mother, Charlotte, was a Anglo-Sinhalese nurse. Her father, Arthur, was a British railway engineer. Merle was her mother's second child. Charlotte had abandoned her first daughter, Constance, at a boarding school; she refused to take care of a child born out of wedlock and inisted that Arthur marry her, which he did shortly before Merle's birth.

In [[1914]] when she was 3, Merle's father died of [[pneumonia]] on the front lines of the warwestern between Germany and Englandfront. Mother and daughter led an impoverished existence in shabby [[Bombay]] apartments for a few years. Then, in 1917, they moved to better circumstances in [[Calcutta]] (now [[Kolkata]]). Merle received a foundation scholarship to attend [[La Martiniere College]] for girls, a well known Calcutta private school. There, she was constantly taunted for her unconventional parentage and eventually quit school and had her lessons at home.

Merle first performed with the Calcutta Amateur Dramatic Society. She was also completely enamored by the movies and enjoyed going out to nightclubs. As she entered her teen years, she dated increasingly powerful men. In [[1929]], she met a former actor who claimed he could introduce her to Rex Ingram of [[Victorine Studios]]. Merle jumped at the offer and decided to follow the man to the studios in France. However, when he saw Merle's dark mother one night at her apartment and realized Merle was mixed-race, he secretly decided to end the relationship.