In 1935, Merle Oberon became the first biracial actress to be nominated for a Best Actress Oscar, an incredible achievement in then-segregated Hollywood -- except that nobody in Hollywood knew Oberon was biracial. Born in Bombay into abject poverty in 1911, Oberon's fate seemed sealed in her racist colonial society. But a series of events, lies, men and an obsession with controlling her own image -- even if it meant bleaching her own skin -- changed Oberon's path forever. This episode was written and performed by Halley Bondy, a writer and journalist whose work has appeared on NBC, The Outline, Eater NY, Paste Magazine, Scary Mommy, Bustle, Vice and more. She's an author of five young adult books plus a handful of plays and is a writer / producer for the podcast "Masters of Scale." She lives in Brooklyn with husband / cheerleader Tim and her amazing toddler Robin.
 
To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy
  
 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

155: Passing for White: Merle Oberon (Make Me Over, Episode 4)

You Must Remember This is a storytelling podcast exploring the secret and/or forgotten histories of Hollywood’s first century. It’s the brainchild and passion project of Karina Longworth (founder of Cinematical.com, former film critic for LA Weekly), who writes, narrates, records and edits each episode. It is a heavily-researched work of creative nonfiction: navigating through conflicting reports, mythology, and institutionalized spin, Karina tries to sort out what really happened behind the films, stars and scandals of the 20th century.

TV & Film

The first episode of You Must Remember This tells the story of actress Kim Novak -- a top box office draw of the late 1950s and the iconic star of Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo -- and her painful struggles to assert herself from the mid-20th century through well into the 21st, in a Hollywood that repeatedly sent her the message that she was only valuable for the way she looked, while also insisting that she didn’t quite look good enough. Originally released in April 2014, this episode has been “lost” for almost as long due to copyright issues with its soundtrack. Today, in honor of the podcast’s ten year anniversary, we’re rereleasing this episode with new music, largely re-recorded voiceover, and just enough of the original episode intact so you can hear how far the show has come over the course of a decade.
 
To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy
  
 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Hard Hollywood Life of Kim Novak — 10th anniversary restoration

Our first guest on Talking Pictures is writer director Nancy Meyers (Something’s Gotta Give, It’s Complicated, The Holiday). Recorded at her home, host Ben Mankiewicz talks with Meyers about casting Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton, getting script advice from Sunset Boulevard director Billy Wilder, and they discuss what it’s like to become famous for her interiors. Spoiler: it’s frustrating! Nancy Meyers also answers our Super 8 questionnaire and reveals which film had her running from the theater in absolute terror.
 
To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy
  
 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Introducing: Talking Pictures from TCM and Max

In part 2 of the Eyes Wide Shut story, the movie is finally unveiled, and critics are divided on its quality, and the use of digital effects to evade an NC-17 rating. Where could Hollywood eroticism go from here? We’ll wrap up the Erotic 90s story with some thoughts on Richard Gere’s two-decade journey from American Gigolo to becoming PEOPLE Magazine’s 1999 “Sexiest Man Alive,” and other ways in which time and politics combined to make that which was once transgressive harmlessly mainstream.
 
To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy
  
 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Eyes Wide Shut, Part 2, and the Sexiest Man Alive in 1999 (Erotic 90s, Part 21)

At the peak of their careers, Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman left Hollywood for two years to collaborate with legendary filmmaker Stanley Kubrick on an erotic drama that the media speculated would pull back the curtain on maybe the most fascinating famous couple in the world. Though the meta element can’t be ignored, what Eyes Wide Shut actually ended up being is much more interesting. It’s a culmination of every theme and trope we’ve discussed across Erotic 80s and 90s, and the last film of the twentieth century headlined by American superstars to question the moral rot of the rich and powerful. In part 1 of the Eyes Wide Shut story, we’ll analyze the film and the media frenzy over the mystery of its making.
 
To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy
  
 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Eyes Wide Shut, Part 1 (Erotic 90’s, Part 20)

If Adrian Lyne’s Lolita became a case study of what Hollywood and America didn’t want to acknowledge about its sexualization of young girls, as the 90s came to a close the culture was full of “acceptable” depictions of teens in heat. Two hit films from 1998 and 1999, Wild Things and Cruel Intentions, adapted classic templates of adult sexual manipulation to turn teen girls into femme fatales (probably not coincidentally, both featured actresses, Neve Campbell and Sarah Michelle Gellar, who were famous for playing high school students on TV). Also no coincidence: these films entered the culture simultaneous to the debut of 17 year-old Britney Spears, whose videos and persona centered her status as “not a girl, not yet a woman.”
 
To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy
  
 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

155: Passing for White: Merle Oberon (Make Me Over, Episode 4)

Download our free app to listen on your phone