The Painful Past, Truth and Ultimate Recognition of the First AAPI actress to be nominated for an Academy Award in 1936
As veteran actress Michelle Yeoh takes the spotlight this Oscar season, Merle Oberon set the stage nearly a century ago...
For people of color, the tale of colorism, colonialism, intraracial bigotry, and passing, is as old as time. Caught between two unaccepting worlds, is a history riddled with confusion, conflation, justifications, and excuses for far too many.
As an African-American woman, I have lived with – and internalized – the bombardment of a society, and a world, that puts Anglo women on a pedestal when it comes to, not only the standard of beauty but the expectations of ability.
Eighty-seven years ago, actress Merle Oberon would be the first Asian-American woman to receive Hollywood’s most prestigious form of acknowledgment – an Academy Award nomination in 1936 for her role in The Dark Angel.
Merle Oberon (Photo courtesy of You Must Remember This podcast)
The 1935 film starring Frederic March and Herbert Marshall, and Oberon is a story of unrequited love, friendship, longing, and heartbreak in a World War I world. The Sri Lankan/Maori actress would stand shoulder to shoulder with white actresses of her time and solidify her place among legends like Meryl Streep.
Oberon and Frederic March in The Dark Angel
But Oberon’s story is more complicated than that and shines a light on the old-age controversy of “passing,” and the ultimate consequences.
Though used throughout history in reference to Black Americans of mixed race who were able to “pass” for white – and many did – it’s not a concept or practice relegated to those of a darker hue.
With worldwide emphasis and value placed on the fairer complected, Oberon would fall into the dichotomy of reality and distortion when making the foray into big-screen acceptance and success.
The Bombay native – and bi-racial entertainer born of rape – sought to leave her painful past behind and head for the brighter lights abroad, where she used her lightly completed Irish-Sri-Lankan/Maori genes to move among people of the white race, undetected.
When the Hollywood Reporter recently stated that legendary actress, Michelle Yeoh, is the “first person who identifies as Asian” to be nominated for an Oscar for her starring role in Everything Everywhere All at Once, old wounds were opened.
Everything Everywhere all at once (Photo courtesy of IMDB)
Those familiar with Oberon’s story, and history, would be reminded that Yeoh isn’t the first.
But the key word is “identifies.”
And Oberon didn’t.
It would be years before the actress’ true heritage would be revealed. Shocking many, but disgusting those with closed minds even more. Leading to the talented movie star’s eventual fall from grace.
Oberon’s mother was only 14 when she gave birth to the actress. Born Estelle Merle O’Brien Thompson, Oberon faced discrimination from those who used her mixed-race bloodline against her.
Too brown to be white, and too white to be brown.
Raised as her mother’s sibling in an attempt to shield her from the truth, Oberon was relentlessly bullied at an all-girls private school in Calcutta.
Despite winning a scholarship to attend, her smarts and accomplishments weren’t enough to keep the bigots at bay.
Retreating to the big screen to escape the brutal reality, that to reach her destiny she’d one day have to leave the only home she’d known behind.
Her exotic beauty would be both an advantage, and a burden as the men came calling.
Indoctrinated through experience into believing the hierarchal, patriarchal, sexist, and racist stereotypes, Oberon used it to her advantage and was given the opportunity to travel abroad to Europe, and eventually the U.S. through their lust-inspired generosity.
The embattled actress resorted to bleaching her skin and perfecting an upper-class accent – and it paid off despite the disfiguring trauma to her skin and health.
Propelled to notoriety after appearing in a bit part playing Anne Boleyn in 1933’s, The Private Life of Henry VIII, the troubled starlet went so far as to present her dark-skinned grandmother as the maid.
The lies were catching up with her, and the in-your-face style of racism in the industry was catching fire. Movies featuring caricatures of Black Americans and those of the AAPI community flooded theaters as a society obsessed with race – and its resulting ignorance, dismissal, and denigration of marginalized communities – would play a role in Oberon’s rise and eventual fall from White Hollywood’s grace.
Once discovered, Oberon faced a backlash that would turn her world upside down.
In a relationship with famed Hungarian director, Alexander Korba, the rising star took off, but despite appearing in multiple hit movies at the time, Oberon’s race and ethnicity would be her bane as those curious about her background would dig deep in an attempt to uncover – or rather expose – who this strange beauty was.
Public scrutiny and criticism of her performances would see the Indian-born actress retreat deeper into her façade and cling tighter to the narrative she’d formed for herself as being born in Tasmania.
Nicknamed “Queenie,” back in India, actor Charlton Heston referred to her as “a lady whose beauty is not only a legend but a reality.
This brings us to the present.
Michelle Yeoh, 60, has starred in blockbusters such as Ang Lee’s Oscar-nominated film, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (Photo courtesy of IndieWire)
The Malaysian actress has racked up a helluva resume. From Memoirs of a Geisha to James Bond’s Tomorrow Never Dies, Yeoh has not shied away from her Asian heritage – unlike Oberon – embracing her ethnicity with a vigor and pride that is sorely needed.
To point out that before Yeoh, there was Oberon, isn’t a slight disrespect to the actress making Academy Award history in 2023, but to remind others of the complex and complicated history that women of color have lived, experienced and both rejected and embraced.
Michelle Yeoh (Photo courtesy of The Los Angeles Times)
We stand on the shoulders of those who came before us, and our shoulders will be the ladder climbed upon by those coming after.
Although Oberon took a different – and what some may consider, controversial route to fame – it exposes the prescient need for inclusion, diversity, recognition, and acceptance of all of us.
Two women who’ve made history in their own right is the wake-up that we need to move past the stereotypes, discrimination, and oppression of all the creative and diverse voices that make the movie-going experience all the more real, and significantly better.
Their talent and their beauty would force moviegoers to embrace their own prejudices and biases, and call out an industry and system that has suppressed the unique and important stories of those opening the door for not just tolerance, but acceptance in Hollywood.
While some may disagree, I don’t fault Oberon for the choices she made, but I like to believe that somewhere in the deepest part of her heart and soul there was at least an inkling of guilt and shame. But then again, had she “come out,” so to speak, in the beginning, her story may have never been told at all.
Oberon passed away in 1979 after suffering a stroke, a year after being questioned by reporters unable to verify her claims of being born in Tasmania, asked the actress about her claims.
Sources: The Guardian, Wikipedia
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You've done it again. Growing up I assumed Merle Oberon was British and never gave it a second thought. Perhaps that was because I only saw her in B&W on our TV before we had color. I also have a vague memory of hearing her name in association with a sound recording of a drama of some sort but that would have been when I was around the 2nd grade and we didn't have any TV.