Happy birthday to exquisite actress Merle Oberon (19 February 1911–23 November 1979), the definitive Cathy from Wuthering Heights.  Above, a 1938 publicity photo, via  jeanjeanie61. Born in India, possibly of mixed-race parentage (to a mother she denied all her life long), Oberon arrived in England while still a teenager, getting a tiny film break playing Anne Boleyn to Charles Laughton’s Henry in The Private Life of Henry VIII.  But she soon made her way, co-starring with Lawrence Olivier in The Divorce of Lady X, with Leslie Howard in The Scarlet Pimpernel, and again with Olivier in Wuthering Heights, and, much later, with Marlon Brando, as Josephine to his Napoleon, in Désirée.  She may have lived a lie her whole life, and denied her family, but she sure was beautiful to watch on screen… And, finally, from the great George Hurrell, a 1935 publicity photo:

Happy birthday to exquisite actress Merle Oberon (19 February 1911–23 November 1979), the definitive Cathy from Wuthering Heights.  Above, a 1938 publicity photo, via  jeanjeanie61.

Born in India, possibly of mixed-race parentage (to a mother she denied all her life long), Oberon arrived in England while still a teenager, getting a tiny film break playing Anne Boleyn to Charles Laughton’s Henry in The Private Life of Henry VIII.  But she soon made her way, co-starring with Lawrence Olivier in The Divorce of Lady X, with Leslie Howard in The Scarlet Pimpernel, and again with Olivier in Wuthering Heights, and, much later, with Marlon Brando, as Josephine to his Napoleon, in Désirée. 

She may have lived a lie her whole life, and denied her family, but she sure was beautiful to watch on screen…

1944, The Dark Angel

Merle Oberon

And, finally, from the great George Hurrell, a 1935 publicity photo:

1935 Hurrell photo of Merle Oberon

(via retrogirly)

Tags: birthdays actresses UK Hollywood Merle Oberon