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In 1973 we had the opportunity to speak with Merle Oberon in connection with her last film, INTERVAL. As it developed, we spoke more about her career and reminiscences. She was intrigued and invited us back for a second session. Miss Oberon was a beautiful and charming lady much like her screen image.

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Let’s start with a brief autobiographical resume.

“My father died in Tasmania, before I was born. We lived with my mother’s half brother and his wife – a very conservative family – in India for a while. In Calcutta and Darjeeling. I was not even a year old when I left Tasmania, I have no brothers or sister…”

We read somewhere that you performed at a railway station in Calcutta with a friend.

“Railway station? But that’s fantastic! Sometimes you say there’s a little bit of truth, but…? I was in the Calcutta Amateur Theatrical Society. A society of Calcutta would put on a pantomime every year for the children; it’s a custom they still observe in England. They’re marvelous, and I was in one or two of them. I was a little girl. My uncle was going to Europe on a trip when I was still very young, and I went with him. The idea was that I should have an education. Being as young as I was, I had no intention of starting a career… but people would see me in London and they would say, “You ought to be in pictures.” It’s such a dangerous thing to do to young girls. This one turned out all right, but… I think I was striking-looking in a country where all the beauties were blond and blue-eyed… and so got an awful lot of this. Anyway, I went back to Calcutta and was educated for another year, but this was sticking in my craw. I came back to London and was introduced to an agent, and it was terribly funny! I looked, apparently, like a vamp, because of these slanting eyes, and my skin was very white at the time and my hair was quite dark. The first time he took me to a studio (Elstree) they rushed me in through the make-up room and onto the set, I was supposed to be testing for a picture. I had never been on a set before. Freddie Brisson’s father was the star of the picture and I was supposed to “vamp” him. I didn’t even realize we were on a stage! All I knew was that I was standing in the middle of the floor and there were a lot of men around, and some lights focused on us. This sweet older man saw that I was a lost little girl so he thought well, he’d better help me by putting his arms around me… and I’m pushing him away. It was pathetic! Needless to say, I didn’t get the part. I wrote to my mother and said I would like to try this, but not to tell my uncle who was very conservative and who still thought that it was not “done” to be in show business. She wrote back and said they couldn’t let me stay too long. My uncle had originally put me in the New Century Club on Hay Hill and there were respectable older ladies living there. I remember that I loved older people as a young girl and I used to sit for hours having the old ladies tell me their life stories. I don’t see children doing that now. Do you realize how much education I got by that? Biography, stories…

“Anyway, I had my money to stay three months. This was agreed between my mother and myself. My uncle thought I was being educated privately. I had the room paid for at the club. And you know how life is, how it seems like, oh, tomorrow you’re going to make it. This is when the agent took me around to every studio and this is when Irving Asher gave me a test, and three or four other studios, and I was terrible! But it always seemed as if there were something coming over the horizon. I wrote my mother, telling her I was going to stay a little longer, and not to tell my uncle. I cashed in my return ticket. I was going to the Cafe de Paris, which was the most exclusive restaurant in London, where “His Master’s Voice”, the Victor Record Company, was having an audition for girls. They were going to start a film company, which I don’t believe they ever did. There were lots of marvelous-looking women there. On my way out, the manager of the club came to me and he said “Would you like to work here?” I was quite astonished. He said “We pay two pounds ten a week and dinner” and the dinner was beginning to sound very good to my ears because my room was paid for at the New Century Club, but no meals. So I said, “I don’t think mother would be very pleased.” He said “Well, come on Thursday and meet the others. There are two men and three girls.” The idea is that the English being such a restrained race, we start the dancing. It sounds like a story, doesn’t it? Now, I love to dance. If I had to choose between dinner and dance, I’d choose dancing. On Thursday I went and had tea with them, met them all. Very nice! Much older than I, I was then fifteen, I think. I said ”All right I’ll try it.”
And it was around then that the film ALF’S BUTTON came up.

There were a number of films you said you were in at that time to persuade people that you were older and had experience.

“Yes.”

Your first Korda film was SERVICE FOR LADIES in 1932.

“No, I was not in that at all. I didn’t even know Mr. Korda then.”

It’s one that’s always in your bios.

“It’s always, isn’t it? And I would give a million if you find a photograph of me in it. As a matter of fact, that one I didn’t make up. Someone thought I was in that one and I let them think so.”

How about NEVER TROUBLE TROUBLE (1931)?

“No.”

That’s out-and FASCINATION (1931)?

“Yes.”

Followed by, in 1932, FOR THE LOVE OF MIKE directed by Monty Banks.

“I vaguely remember that.”

It was just a walk-on. How about EBB TIDE (1932), you were in that?

“Yes.”

And AREN’T WE ALL?

“I was in that too, in fact there was quite a scene about that one. I arrived late at the studio. I’m a very punctual person, but something happened. Harry Lachman was the director and he chose to bawl me out in front of the whole cast. There looked to be about two hundred people; I think it was a theatre scene – I’ve never seen it. I turned around and I let him have it and I walked off the set. He came after me and he called me back and he gave me a small bit. I was doing that when Alex Korda was at the restaurant at lunch time with his divorced wife and she apparently made a very complimentary remark about my face, which I’m not going to repeat…”

Why not?

“Because I don’t believe it. Anyway…”

Well, we’d believe it.

“You’re very sweet – but she was blonde, and blue-eyed and supposedly she was considered one of the real beauties of the world – her name was Maria Korda. Alex told me later that he didn’t have his glasses on and couldn’t see this face she was talking about. So he came out onto the set of AREN’T WE ALL and said, “I’m starting a film company and I’d like you to make a test – I’d like to take you to dinner and discuss it.” I’d had a lot of experiences about dinners and when he called I wouldn’t go. I made it very difficult for him, but here was a man who was completely on the level. He came by and dropped off something that I should do for the test. And came the day for the test and I went to Wemberly, and Alex with his way, he’d got every beautiful woman in London… l mean titled ones and everything and the ones in show business. I took a look at them all and I thought “no chance” and so I didn’t care when it came to the test. And it’s funny because I went home on the train and the make-up lady was sitting near me and she was sure she didn’t have a chance – she was sure they would take the men. I just put it out of my mind and then I read in the paper that I was put under contract with three other girls. That’s how I found out.”

So WEDDING REHEARSAL” was your first Korda – are there any other films you gave yourself credit for that you weren’t in?

“They said I was in FIRE OVER ENGLAND. I think someone mistook me for Vivien. They mistook Vivien and me a lot.”

You then made MEN OF TOMORROW with Robert Donat and Emlyn Williams. The director was Leontine Sagan, a German directress who did a classic film prior to this called MAEDCHEN IN UNIFORM and this was almost a male counterpart.

“It was at Oxford and based on a book titled ‘Young Apollo’. In this one I was the young vamp – there were two parts and Joan Gardner was the other one.”

You worked with her quite a bit.

“Yes, because she was one of the four girls signed by Alex.”

This film preceded HENRY THE EIGHTH and Donat was in both films. Can you tell us anything about him?

“No, I couldn’t. He was very pleasant and charming although sickly. He was rather serious-minded and a seemingly very good actor with a beautiful voice but we had no work to do together, so it’s hard to tell you much about him.”

You must have been aware that THE PRIVATE LIFE OF HENRY THE EIGHTH was Korda ‘s biggest production.

“Yes, we knew it was to be the big British film. I think they wanted it to be an international film and not solely British. It was the first one to go to Radio City Music Hall – it had a big success here and moreso because it was British.”

I don’t know if you’re aware of this but MEN OF TOMORROW, the film that preceded HENRY THE EIGHTH, was not brought over here until 1935.

“I didn’t even know it was ever brought over here.”

Because of the popularity of yourself and Donat.

“How were the reviews?”

They liked if but there was a censorship problem and there were 25 minutes cut out of that film over here.

“Can you imagine. A film made in Oxford in which we were all supposed to be children.”

Your first film in America was DARK ANGEL.

“That’s the milestone, I think. I was in Hollywood and I was invited to the Goidwyns’ for dinner, without really knowing them. After dinner Mr. Goldwyn asked “Have you ever seen a picture I made called THE DARK ANGEL? And I said “That was my favorite picture. I saw it when I was ten years old and I sat there and cried.” And he said, “I’m going to re-make it, and I want you to play in it.” I said “You want me to play in it?” And he said, “Yes, but looking just like you look now, with no make-up on.” And I heard afterward that it had been like a search for Scarlet O’Hara, that everyone had wanted to play the part and it was very thrilling, I was really very happy to do it.”

Although THE DARK ANGEL was a big hit I prefer your performance in your next Goldwyn film THESE THREE.

“Oh, really? It’s a very nice film, isn’t it? You know Audrey Hepburn always used to say that she kind of modeled herself after me. And then when she was to do this picture, I had dinner with her the night before and she said she had just seen the picture and couldn’t understand why they wanted to re-make it. She said “They should just re-release it.” How right she was. I think our cast was so right, you know. Joel McCrea was so divine – I love his underacting.”

Now, about Miriam Hopkins – there’s been so much said about poor Miriam, about her temperament and everything else. You had to work closely with her in THESE THREE, did you have any problem with her?

“Yes, you couldn’t not, and I never had problems with anyone. Poor Miriam, I think she did these things automatically. But that’s where I got an education – I learned how to play to a gobo. Because at the beginning, when she would be standing beside the camera to give me my lines – instead of giving me my lines, she would be looking at me critically, you know, then giving lines. So I said to Willie, quietly, “Let Miss Hopkins rest and I will do my scenes to the gobo.” The crew did not like her at all, I remember. They were my darling friends. I did every picture with them. One day I said to the grip “Mac, you didn’t say good morning to me.” He said angrily, “You came on the set with her.” I didn’t have serious trouble, but poor Willie, I think he used to go out of his mind. I never want to believe that people are really mean. Poor Miriam, maybe life had been so tough that this was second nature – maybe she was trying to protect herself in that way. I’ve had it easy, comparatively, in my career, because these little pictures in the beginning all came like that, in a month or two.”

What about Bonita Granville’s performance?

“I guess I think she was good, but the other girl was much better.”

Marcia Mae Jones. I think she was really, by underplaying it…

“Now you see that’s my kind of playing. I feel the thing. I don’t just do the thing, I feel it. She really broke your heart, that little girl. She must be a very sweet person because she was such a sweet little girl. You know, I preferred all of them in THESE THREE to the new one. Alma Kruger had such queenlines, such dignity.”

Miriam was in the re-make.

“She was in Catharine Doucet’s part. Now this is interesting – whereas Miriam’s kind of mean little face made the part in the second version purposely mean… in the other one Doucet was more innocently making trouble, she didn’t have as calculating a face… those big vacant eyes. Anyway, I only saw it a short while ago and I thought all the characters were so good.”

Was Lillian Hellman on the set?

“Yes, she was there a lot, and we became great friends.”

I think she did a yeoman job in changing the concept – not only a change but an improvement.

“Except or the ending of the film. It looked like we had to finish it.”

Although it was a tacked-on happy ending, Gregg Toland’s camera made it work especially the shot where you looked into the shop window and your breath hit the pane.

“You know something. Willie Wyler told me the other day, and I don’t know what we were talking about or how it came up, but he said that the man who did the frosting on the window – now that you mention it, who do you think it was? Fred Zinneman.”

I don’t really know what to ask about your next film BELOVED ENEMY.

“I don’t know what to tell you, except that I’d had such a big success in THE DARK ANGEL – a personal success… I mean it’s one of those stories that Sam Goldwyn likes to tell, of us going into Grauman’s Chinese to see the film, and I being almost unknown; and coming out with people screaming and yelling and trying to get a hold of me and touch me. So now he had a big star property on his hands and he had to find a story for me. They were working like mad at the studios, and I remember the first script of BELOVED ENEMY. The title was THE OBERON STORY. So it was all cooked up for me. I don’t remember it as a picture. It was an Irish revolutionary thing. I wonder how it would hold up today?”

From there it was back to England for the ill-fated I, CLAUDIUS.

“That was a big tragedy. I worked very little.”

We saw the BBC special – the footage of you was incredible.

“But all I did was to walk past a couple of times.”

Unfortunate.

“I don’t want to go into it too much, it’s rather embarrassing. But I know Von Sternberg was trying to get a Marlene Dietrich out of me. Didn’t you notice the lighting?”

What did you think of the I, CLAUDIUS TV special?

“I thought it was very interesting. It broke my heart that Charles didn’t finish the picture. I don’t know what happened to this man. He kept coming to the studio and crying ”I’ve lost it. I’ve lost it.” He’d come to my room and cry, and put his head on my lap. I think that that would have been his greatest performance.”

Could it have had anything to do with the chemistry between him and Von Sternberg?

“Everyone thought Von Sternberg was rather odd. First, the way he dressed. It was so ridiculous. He had a bandana tied around his head like Aunt Jemima’s pancakes – he had a jacket with the loudest checks you ever saw – he had riding britches and riding boots laced right up – and a riding crop.

Alex was so funny. He was the producer you know. He always had this fantastic sense of humor, and somebody was talking about the way Von Sternberg was dressed and Alex said (with accent) “I don’t mind, except those goddamn boots. To think that son-of-a-so-and-so would sit down and lace those boots.” All I have to say, too, about I, CLAUDIUS is that every time I got a cold after that the bell rang at Lloyd’s because they had to pay Alex a million dollars because I had this motor car accident, and it got him off the hook. As far as Charles and Von Sternberg, I don’t know what they had between them, because I wasn’t there, you know.”

Were you excited about working with him, before you saw the way he was dressed?

”I was interested. I didn’t think that Miss Dietrich has acted in any of his films I’d seen featuring her. I thought they were a series of stills. Very, very beautiful, breathtaking… and I’m sure that she probably could have become a great actress if she hadn’t just been caught in all these stills. So actually, no, because I always wanted to become an actress, so there wasn’t any great excitement about working with him.”

Character actor Bernard Nedell once told a story about you coming to his home in England, late one night in the 1930’s, very upset over getting a film part. He said he would never forget the little girl who came in crying. Do you remember the incident?

“It might have been because of HENRY VIII – I read in the papers that I was going to play Anne Boleyn. And I was thrilled because she was the most important wife, there having never been a breach between the church before. And the mother of Queen Elizabeth, you know, there was no other wife who did half as much. So I was thrilled, I thought here I’ve got the big part. And then Alex gave me the script – I had these two pages. I remember going into him with this Irish temper – and I didn’t care. If it was the King of England and he’d done something I didn’t think was right, I’d go and fight him. And I go stamping into his office – and remember, we were not married and this was more of a father-child relationship – I go stamping into his office, telling him just what I told you, and that I read the rest of the script and Binnie Barnes has her head chopped off, too. Alex, sitting there calmly smoking a cigar says (accent) “Well, what do you want me to do with her darling, shoot her?” I was determined that he would say to me one day “I wish I’d given you that big part.” And the day I finished shooting he said exactly that. Actually, he didn’t think I could do it and so he brought Binnie Barnes in – Binnie had been working a lot.”

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