Merle Oberon Net Worth

Merle Oberon's Quotes

• Without security, it is difficult for a woman to look or feel beautiful.
• Even when I was single, I owned homes and gardens. I buy beauty when other women buy jewels. Land is security to me. I need gardens that are mine to walk on.
• [on Ernst Lubitsch in That Uncertain Feeling (1941)] That was probably the happiest picture I ever made because Lubitsch was such a funny man, such a darling man. He played the piano between every take, and there would be laughs. Then I always ask him to do the scene for me before I did it only to have a laugh.
• [1935] The average cinema scene lasts for less than a minute on the screen. There are possibly ten "takes," that is, ten times the cameras actually grind out the scene. Then probably three of them, the best three, are studied. A clever film editor takes various "frames" or parts from each of these three and builds them into a perfect sequence. And just imagine! - the actress sits back and says: "What a great actress am I!" That's why I want to do a play in which sustained artistry will prove whether or not I am really the actress I believe I am!
• [Norma Shearer] was so nice to me when I was in Cailfornia.

Interesting Facts about Merle Oberon

1. Was known as "Queenie Thompson" until 1933, when future husband Alexander Korda changed her name for her role in The Private Life of Henry VIII. (1933).
2. Interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, CA, in the Garden of Remembrance.
3. Because of facial scars she sustained in a London car crash in 1937, her future husband, cinematographer Lucien Ballard, designed a compact spotlight that he coined the "Obie" (Oberon's nickname). Mounted on the side of the camera, it lights the subject head-on, thus reducing the incidence of unflattering facial lines and shadows.
4. Oberon's birth certificate gave Merle's parents as Arthur Terrence O'Brien Thompson, a British mechanical engineer from Darlington, England, who worked in Indian Railways, and Charlotte Selby, a Eurasian from Ceylon with some Maori ancestry. However, Merle's biological mother was Charlotte's 12-year-old daughter Constance. Charlotte had herself given birth to Constance at the age of 14, the result of a relationship with Henry Alfred Selby, the Anglo-Irish foreman of a tea plantation. To avoid scandal, Charlotte raised Merle as Constance's sister, listing Charlotte's partner, Arthur Thompson, as the father on Merle's birth certificate, with the forename misspelled "Arther". The identity of Merle's biological father is not known.
5. Had extremely sensitive skin. She suffered from cosmetic poisoning twice, the second of which left permanent scarring.
6. Adopted two children, Francesca and Bruno Jr., during her marriage to Bruno Pagliai.
7. Early publicity stated that she was born in Tasmania, Australia, rather than India. At that time a Tasmanian background was considered "classier" than her true mixed-race origins.
8. Her will left most of her money to be divided between her children. She left $1 million to the Motion Picture Country Home and Hospital. Her husband, Robert Wolders, got nothing, at his own request.
9. In 1949, 12 years after her mother's death, she commissioned a painting of her from an old photograph, instructing the painter to lighten her mother's complexion to hide the fact that she was part-Indian.
10. The miniseries Queenie (1987) starring Mia Sara is based on a book by Merle's nephew, loosely based on her life.
11. Was considered for the role of Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind (1939).
12. Most early biographies of her credited Service for Ladies (1927) as her first Alexander Korda film, but she was not in it nor Never Trouble Trouble (1931), another film in which is is often incorrectly included.
13. According to an interview with her in the February 1982 edition of "Films in Review", Samuel Goldwyn owed her over a million dollars for a series of pictures. He allegedly cried to her that he did not have the money. According to her, she told him to forget about it even though she still owed agent's fees to Myrom Selznick. Some years later Oberon asked Mrs. Goldwyn if she could buy a print of Wuthering Heights (1939) to complete her collection of films for her children but was refused.
14. Although she made three films opposite Charles Korvin, she said in an interview in the February 1982 issue of "Films in Review" that he was not a good actor.
15. Stunned by her radiant beauty in The Private Life of Henry VIII. (1933), director William Wyler recommended to cousin Carl Laemmle that he sign her. Months later Wyler discovered that Universal had taken his advice but mistakenly signed Binnie Barnes.
16. Had appeared with Binnie Barnes in four films: The Private Life of Henry VIII. (1933), The Private Life of Don Juan (1934), The Divorce of Lady X (1938) and 'Til We Meet Again (1940).
17. Passed away on November 23, 1979, three months away from what would have been her 69th birthday on February 19, 1980.
18. Awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6274 Hollywood Blvd. on February 8, 1960.
19. Was considered for the role of Bithiah in Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments (1956).
20. Oberon made a cameo appearance as herself in the film The Oscar (1966) in the scene in which she presents the Academy Award for Best Actor.