Merle Oberon, born Estelle Merle O’Brien Thompson in what is now Bombay, was the daughter of a teenage mother of Sinhalese and Māori descent and a British father.

Oberon was raised to believe that her grandmother, Charlotte Selby, was her mother, while her actual mother was presented as her sister. She grew up in Calcutta, where her family lived in poverty.

She found escape in films, and when an opportunity arose to travel to Europe, she seized it. Charlotte Selby even posed as her maid, in part because of her darker complexion.

As Oberon’s career advanced, a more socially acceptable backstory was fabricated. It claimed she had been born into a wealthy British family in Hobart, Tasmania, and later moved to India after her father’s supposed death in a hunting accident. Tasmania and the Australian media warmly embraced this version of her life, following her career for years. Meanwhile, people in Calcutta never forgot her. Some insisted she was born there, while others remembered her as a switchboard operator.

Oberon went on to achieve major success in Hollywood, earning an Academy Award nomination in 1935 for “The Dark Angel”. Her true background, however, remained hidden until 1983, when the biography Princess Merle: The Romantic Life of Merle Oberon revealed her Anglo-Indian roots, supported by official records and family documents.