The Impact of Merle Oberon’s Tragic History on Hollywood
Michelle Yeoh, an international icon and best-known actress because of her role in acting won this Sunday’s Academy Award for Best Actress. This was her first Oscar nomination as an Asian woman , and her second award she’s won in the past 95 years.
Was she worthy of being acknowledged? After all, her competition was Cate Blanchett in the race for Tar.
Merle Oberon
Even though she might not have received as much attention in the same way as Michelle Yeoh from Asia, Merle Oberon is a pioneering Hollywood celebrity who made history. She was the first Asian-American actress to receive an Academy Award nomination. Despite her heritage of mixed race, Oberon declared she was white.
Beginning her journey as an actress in British film, she was offered the role of Anne Boleyn in The Private Life of Henry VIII in 1933. The film would become the first British talkie that attracted international viewers. It was her turn to be hired by Hungarian-born director Alexander Korda and went on to a number of other performances.
Being in a relationship even with Prince Philip (the husband of the Queen Elizabeth II) was an everyday affair. To escape persecution, she kept the details of her South Asian heritage a secret and covered herself in white. In 1979 she died and only years after her death when the world learned of her true identity.
Vivien Leigh
Vivien was an acclaimed actress on the silver screen. Although she was well-known for her performance skills and attractiveness, the actress also suffered from depression. Leigh was first diagnosed with tuberculosis around the middle of 1940s.
The tragic narrative of her life reveals troubling details about an artist who struggled to keep her sanity. Bipolar disorder was an integral part of her public appearance.
The actress also had a harrowing relationship with her husband Laurence Olivier. The couple had been married for seven years before they split in 1960.
Leigh was an accomplished showman on the stage, however her films didn’t fare as well in America. The 1940s were the first time she was in a cycle of flops, and she even suffered the first major mental breakdown.
The trauma she experienced from her first miscarriage was an important factor in her mental disorder. She made films of Caesar as well as Cleopatra in 1945. some historians suggest that her miscarriage was the first crack into her mental health.
Michelle Yeoh
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awarded an Oscar to one Asian performer for the first time in its 95-year record. Michelle Yeoh was awarded the top award for her performance on Everything Everywhere At Once. The sci-fi film centers on the story of a Chinese American laundry owner who must navigate through a complex of multiverses to escape an unnatural threat.
Yeoh is a Malaysian born in Malaysia started her dance training in the early years of her childhood before moving to London at the age of 15 to attend the Royal Academy of Dance. But a back injury caused her to quit her job as a dancer.
She made her on-camera debut in a commercial from 1984 with the martial arts legend Jackie Chan, which led to an acting gig with Hong Kong production company D&B Films. Her first role was advertised as “Michelle Khan,” but later preferred to go by her actual name. She appeared in several local 1980s movies prior to establishing herself with her starring role on the Marvel Cinematic Universe blockbuster Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.
What’s the meaning of the word “name?
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