It was the summer of 2009 when I first encountered the work of the actress Merle Oberon (1911–79). I was on the cusp of my senior year of high school, and my lifelong devotion to the Oscars—an event I followed with the avidity of a sports enthusiast—led me to idle those months away researching the history of the awards. Oberon, I learned, had been the first performer of color to receive a nomination of any kind when she was recognized in the best-actress category for her role in the drama The Dark Angel (1935). But it was the wrinkle in her story that resonated.
At the command of her publicists, Oberon insisted she was the progeny of white gentry born in Australia. She concealed from the public that, in actuality, she had been born into poverty in India, the illegitimate daughter of a South Asian mother and a white father. By agreeing to this contract, Oberon was able to take on such leading roles as Cathy in Wuthering Heights (1939), a part that secured her screen immortality.
