Merle Oberon

Wuthering Heights

Starring 

Merle Oberon

Laurence Olivier

David Niven 
Strangest Love Story Ever Told!

This movie poster of Merle Oberon, Laurence Olivier and David Niven in Wuthering Heights hangs  in the National Portrait Gallery  in Washington, DC.

 The 1939 film adaptation of Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte's renowned 1847 novel, was nominated for eight Academy Awards, including best picture. This promotional poster pictures the glamorous Merle Oberon (Cathy) reclining as the languorous heroine in the arms of Laurence Olivier (Heathcliff), one of Hollywood’s preeminent stars.

The biography of Oberon, “the most famous actress of disguised ancestry,” offers revelatory insights into issues of race and ethnicity during Hollywood's golden age. Born in, Bombay (now Mumbai), Oberon (born Estelle Merle O'Brien Thompson) concealed her Anglo-Indian parentage, maintaining until the last year of her life that she had been born in Australia and raised by wealthy parents. Her first major roles included Anne Boleyn in The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933) and, lady Blakeney in The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934). In recent years, Oberon's, cross-cultural origins and the fictions she devised to deny her heritage have become a subject of interest. -- National Portrait Gallery

 

Laurence Olivier

David Niven

This oddly worded notice in the upper right corner of the poster reminds us  that the poster is a fictional depiction of the movie.

NOTICE – This advertisement was not produced by the maker of distributor of the motion picture bearing the title appearing therewith and no one represents that this scene actually appears in the said motion picture.

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Country of Origin - U.S.A.