Tag Page MerleOberon

Hollywood’s Only Asian Best Actress Nominee Hid Her True Heritage All Her Life, Used Skin Bleaching

I just learned something really wild about classic Hollywood. Merle Oberon, the actress, She was actually born in Bombay in 1911 but spent her whole career claiming she was born to white parents in Tasmania. She was the only Asian Best Actress Oscar nominee. To make it in Hollywood and deal with all that prejudice, she used skin bleaching and completely reinvented herself. She kept her real heritage a secret right up until after she died. It wasn't until 1985 that her true origins finally came out in a biography called Princess Merle. That same year her nephew Michael Korda even wrote a fictionalized version of her life called Queenie which later became a TV miniseries. As one writer Mayukh Sen put it she spent her life navigating an industry that was not designed to accommodate her. Yet she still produced such moving work while fighting all those battles. It just makes you think about what people had to go through. #MerleOberon #HiddenHistory #HollywoodHistory #Oscars #Asian #Heritage