A new biography tells the story of a South Asian Hollywood star who passed as white

NPR's Book of the Day

NPR

Books, Arts

4.2 • 672 Ratings

🗓️ 20 March 2025

⏱️ 11 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In 1936, Merle Oberon became the first Asian woman–and person of color–to receive an Oscar nomination for best actress. She was nominated for her role in The Dark Angel and later starred in films like Wuthering Heights. But Oberon kept her mixed-race, South Asian heritage a secret, passing as white for her entire career. Mayukh Sen tells this story in Love, Queenie, the first biography of Oberon. In today's episode, Sen speaks with Here & Now's Deepa Fernandes about prejudice the actress faced during her upbringing in India, the role men played in her career, and the elaborate stories she told to keep her identity a secret.

To listen to Book of the Day sponsor-free and support NPR's book coverage, sign up for Book of the Day+ at plus.npr.org/bookoftheday

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hey, it's Empire's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbaugh. A good biography can tell a story bigger
0:07.6	than the life of its subject. It can use a life story from the past to raise questions about the
0:12.6	things we're dealing with today. Mayyuk Sen's biography Love Queenie does just that. It's a biography
0:18.4	of Merle O'Brien, a South Asian actor working in the 1930s who
0:22.5	passed as white and was able to reach the highest highs in Hollywood. In this interview with
0:27.8	Herein Nasdipo Fern talks about Oberon's complicated family history and how she maneuvered her way
0:33.9	through the male-dominated space of Hollywood. That's coming up.
0:39.3	Before we let the Oscars rest for the year, a question.
0:43.3	Do you know who was the first Asian-nominated for Best Actress?
0:47.5	If you said Michelle Yeo, well, that's wrong.
0:50.7	Almost nine decades before Yo won her Oscar, Merle Oberon was up for the award for
0:56.8	1935's The Dark Angel. She starred in Wuthering Heights and adaptation of Emily Bronte's
1:03.8	beloved novel a few years later. Heathcliff, make the world stop right here. Make everything stop and stand still and never move again.
1:14.2	Make the Moors never change and you and I never change.
1:17.7	But if you didn't know that Merle O'Brien was of South Asian descent,
1:22.0	that's because she had to hide the fact for her entire career.
1:26.1	It's known as Passing as White white. Mayuk Sen tells Merle
1:30.8	Oberon's story in the new book Love Queenie. And he joins us now from the NPR New York
1:36.3	studios. Mayuk, welcome. Deepa, thank you so much for having me. It's an honor. Let's dive right in
1:41.9	with that clip there that we just heard. It was Wuthering Heights
1:45.0	that first introduced you to Merle Oberon. Can you talk about what it was like to see her on the
1:51.5	screen? Oh, absolutely. So I remember it with crystalline precision. I was completely mesmerized
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from NPR, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of NPR and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.