Merle Oberon, as Hollywood saw her in 1939. United Artists, Wuthering Heights Pressbook, 1939 ^[1]via Lantern Media History Digital Library

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For much of the twentieth century Australians with an interest in British and American films of the 1930’s and ‘40’s believed that the actor Merle Oberon was “one of ours” and that she had been born in Tasmania. Several years after Oberon’s death in California in 1979, the truth about her origins became known, following the publication of Charles Higham’s and Roy Moseley’s Princess Merle in 1983. Higham and Moseley revealed the fact that she had been born in Bombay (now Mumbai) in India and that she was Anglo Indian (specifically – of mixed British-Sinhalese heritage).^[2]See Sen (2025) p2-4 Subsequent research by Maree Delofski (for her documentary film The trouble with Merle, 2002) and Mayukh Sen for his definitive biography Love Queenie in 2025, has corrected some aspects of Higham and Moseley’s account. But this more recent research also confirmed much about Oberon’s early life in India. Delofski and Sen also found that her birth name was Estelle Merle Thompson, born 18 February 1911 ^[3]Merle celebrated her birthday on 19 February to Arthur and Constance Thompson. However, she was raised by her grandmother, Charlotte, whom Merle was initially led to believe was her mother.

Reflecting the deeply racist attitudes that prevailed in the early and mid-twentieth century, Oberon’s origins were hidden during her lifetime behind an elaborate story of having been born in Tasmania before moving to India following the death of her father. All of this was an attempt to prove that she was of pure European origin and to protect her from attitudes which would have terminated her career as an actor.

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Both Higham & Moseley’s book and Delofski’s documentary drew on the memories of Harry Selby, who was Oberon’s half-brother. Selby supplied photographs of two of Oberon’s Mumbai homes and these were reproduced in Princess Merle. The second building which Oberon and her grandmother Charlotte lived in is identified as Imperial Mansion on Ripon Road and is shown below.

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Further information about Imperial Mansion can be found in an article which recently appeared on the Mumbai news site Mid-Day.^[4]see: The three wishes of Macbeth Lane

Today Mumbai is a rapidly changing city, with a population roughly the equivalent of Australia’s total population. While parts of the city are protected by UNESCO World Heritage listings, new buildings are springing up everywhere. For the moment Imperial Mansion remains standing, and provides a tangible and remarkable link with Oberon’s childhood in Mumbai.

With the kind assistance of Vinayak Talwar, an expert with Mumbai’s Khaki Heritage Foundation ^[5]see: KHAKI Foundation: NGO | Heritage Awareness | Archiving | Conservation I was recently able to visit and photograph Imperial Mansion.   

Directions to Merle’s home in Mumbai.

To find Imperial Mansion, head to Nagpada Junction in Byculla, South Mumbai.  What was known as Ripon Road has now been renamed Maulana Azad Road and runs approximately northwards from Nagpada Junction. The building is located at 245 Maulana Azad Road, on the east (right) side perhaps a hundred metres to the north from Nagpada Junction. The building is on the southeastern corner of a lane now known as Nasratullah Abbasi Marg (formerly Macbeth Lane). Another helpful landmark is the American Express Bakery in Mirza Ghalib Road (formerly Clare Road), which adjoins Nasratullah Abbasi Marg at the other (eastern) end of the lane.

Today the area where Oberon lived presents as a typical highly congested Mumbai suburb, with people, traffic and activity everywhere! In earlier times, like much of Mumbai, it had been swamp land. After reclamation the area became a residential area, with a distinctly multicultural aspect. Jews, Catholics, Muslims and Hindus all lived in close proximity. In the lead up to 1947, Nagpada was also a hub for the Indian Independence movement.

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Nagpada is an area of some interest. The word Nag means snake and there is an early shrine in the area that is dedicated to the snake. The area is also the site of the Khada Parsi Fountain which is a memorial to the prominent Parsi Shet Cursetjee Manockjee (1763-1845). Manockjee’s son who funded the construction of the Fountain in the 1860’s was a Bombay judge and supporter of female education, founding the Alexandra Girls English Institution in 1863. The statue of Manockjee which stands above the fountain was designed by the Englishman John Bell (1811 – 1895), a noted sculptor. The fountain and statue, which replicate a similar one in Chile, have recently been restored and can be found near the Byculla flyover road. The American Express Bakery, mentioned above, is famous for the fact that it provided “express” delivery of baked goods to American cruise ships in an earlier era. 

Merle Oberon has at least sixty acting credits – for films made in the UK and US. She died in California in November 1979, aged 68.

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Jock Murphy
March 2026

Further Reading

• Mayukh Sen (2025) Love, Queenie: Merle Oberon, Hollywood’s First South Asian Star. W. W. Norton & Company
  His website is here: https://www.mayukh-sen.com/
• Angela Woollacott (2011) Race and the Modern Exotic. Three ‘Australian’ Women on Global Display. Monash University Publishing
• Marée Delofski (2002) The Trouble with Merle (documentary film) available via Kanopy
• Charles Higham & Roy Moseley (1983) Princess Merle: The Romantic Life of Merle Oberon. Coward-McCann Inc.