[1] She gained recognition for portraying Anne Boleyn in The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933) and saw further success with her role in The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934).

She later travelled to the United States to make films for Samuel Goldwyn, including Folies Bergère de Paris (1935), The Dark Angel (1935), These Three (1936), The Cowboy and the Lady (1938), and Wuthering Heights (1939).

[4] For most of her life, Oberon concealed the truth about her parentage by claiming that she had been born in Tasmania, Australia,[5] and that her birth records had been destroyed in a fire.

[1][8] Charlotte herself had given birth to Constance at the age of 14 after being raped by Henry Alfred Selby, the Anglo-Irish foreman of a tea plantation.

[9] In their 1983 biography of Oberon, Charles Higham and Roy Moseley also wrote that Selby had Māori ancestry, though the Iwi (Maori tribe) was not known.

He only disclosed the information to Maree Delofski, producer of the 2002 ABC Australia documentary The Trouble with Merle, which investigated the conflicting versions of Oberon's origin.

[8] In 1914, when Merle was 3, Arthur Thompson joined the British Army and later died of pneumonia on the Western Front during the Battle of the Somme.

[10] Merle and Charlotte led an impoverished existence in shabby flats in Bombay for a few years before moving in 1917 to Calcutta (now Kolkata).

[11][12] There, she was constantly teased by the majority European students for her mixed ethnicity, which led her her to quit school and receive lessons at home.

Indian journalist Sunanda K. Datta-Ray said that Merle worked as a telephone operator in Calcutta under the name Queenie Thomson, and won a contest at Firpo's Restaurant there, before the outset of her film career.

[15] However, Finney promised to introduce her to Rex Ingram of Victorine Studios (whom he had known through his relationship with the late Barbara La Marr), if she were prepared to travel to France, which she readily did.

[16] Ingram appreciated Oberon's exotic appearance and quickly hired her to be an extra in a party scene in a film named The Three Passions.

[18] Her film career received a major boost when director Alexander Korda took an interest and gave her a small but prominent role, under the name Merle Oberon, as Anne Boleyn in The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933) opposite Charles Laughton.

The film became a major success and she was then given leading roles in other productions, starting with The Battle (1934) opposite Charles Boyer, and The Broken Melody (1934).

Oberon then made two more films for Korda: The Private Life of Don Juan (1934) with Douglas Fairbanks was a disappointment but The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934) with Leslie Howard, who became her lover for a while, was a huge hit.

Goldwyn put her in The Dark Angel (1935), which earned her a sole Academy Award for Best Actress nomination, then These Three (1936) for William Wyler and Beloved Enemy (1936).

According to Princess Merle, the biography written by Charles Higham with Roy Moseley, Oberon suffered damage to her complexion in 1940 from a combination of cosmetic poisoning and an allergic reaction to sulfa drugs.

[30] To avoid prejudice over her mixed background, Oberon created a "cover story" of being born and raised in Tasmania, Australia, and her birth records being destroyed in a fire.

Another visit, to Hobart, was scheduled, but after journalists in Sydney pressed her for details of her early life, she became ill and shortly afterwards left for Mexico.

The Lord Mayor of Hobart became aware shortly before the reception that there was no proof she had been born in Tasmania, but went ahead with the celebration to avoid embarrassment.

News outlets such as The Hollywood Reporter opted to describe Yeoh as "the first self-identified Asian actress" while making note of Oberon passing as white.