Love, Queenie
Merle Oberon, Hollywood's First South Asian Star

There are certain women whose faces feel like secrets. Not in the way secrets are whispered but in the way they’re worn, defiantly, like armour. Merle Oberon was one of them. And for a gay boy growing up in the Bombay of the '90s, where Marine Drive shimmered with promises we weren’t allowed to make......more

A well-written, fascinating look at an actress I never really paid much attention to, even though I had seen several of her movies. It's so sad that she had to hide her Indian roots so that she could get work in Hollywood. But it's unfortunately the way things were for any people of color back then.......more

One of the most interesting biographies I’ve read. Merle Oberon had one of most glamorous and tragic Hollywood careers. A complex woman who was neither good or bad. She yearned for her South Asian roots but denied them at every turn. She was a diva and treated terribly by the studios. She was a true......more

3 / Love, Queenie the story of Merle Oberon, a woman who knew what she wanted and sacrificed what she had to, to get it. Difficult circumstances bought her into the world, her background and the times were stacked against her also. Yet she made it with the help of the right connections and such a dr......more

Mayukh Sen has written a deeply sympathetic portrait of one of Hollywood’s most misunderstood figures. Love, Queenie is not only a love letter to Merle Oberon’s under appreciated filmography, but also an unflinching examination of how the era’s racial codes constricted her life, on and off the scree......more