Beautiful, dark-haired leading lady of British and Hollywood films. Born Estelle Merle O'Brien Thompson, raised and educated in India from age seven, she arrived in London at 17 and began her career as a café hostess, under the name Queenie O'Brien. She entered British films as an extra in 1928 and played bits in a number of productions as Estelle Thompson before being discovered and groomed to stardom by Alexander Korda, whom she married in 1939 and divorced in 1945. She graduated to leads by 1932, and in 1935, when Korda sold a share of her contract to Sam Goldwyn, she began communting between London studios and Hollywood, rapidly establishing herself as a prominent leading lady on both sides of the Atlantic. Some of her credits from this period include THE PRIVATE LIFE OF HENRY VIII (1933, as Anne Boleyn), THE PRIVATE LIFE OF DON JUAN and THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL (both 1934), THE DARK ANGEL (1935), THESE THREE and BELOVED ENEMY (both 1936) and OVER THE MOON (1937). Her near-fatal injury in a 1937 car crash caused the abandonment in mid-production of the ambitious spectacle I CLAUDIUS, in which she co-starred with Charles Laughton under the direction of Josef von Sternberg. She recovered and played in THE DIVORCE OF LADY X and THE COWBOY AND THE LADY (both 1938). Then came the part she will probably always be remembered for: Cathy Linton opposite Laurence Olivier's Heathcliff in William Wyler's WUTHERING HEIGHTS (1939). She continued to perform regularly until the mid-1950s: 'TIL WE MEET AGAIN (1940), THAT UNCERTAIN FEELING, AFFECTIONATELY YOURS and LYDIA (all 1941), FOREVER AND A DAY (1943), THE LODGE and DARK WATERS (both 1944), A SONG TO REMEMBER and THIS LOVE OF OURS (both 1945), A NIGHT IN PARADISE and TEMPTATION (both 1946), NIGHT SONG and BERLIN EXPRESS (both 1948), PARDON MY FRENCY (1951) and DESIRÉE and DEEP IN MY HEART (both 1954). She wasn't a very exciting personality or a particularly good actress, but her regal beauty adorned many important productions and proved a durable asset through the late 60s (HOTEL, 1967). She married producer Alexander Korda in 1939. Her second husband (1945-49) was cinematographer Lucien Ballard. In 1957 she married a wealthy Italian industrialist, with whom she resided in Mexico until her divorce in 1973. That same year she returned to the screen after a long absence in INTERVAL, a film she also produced and co-edited. She later married for the fourth time, to her co-star in that film, Robert Wolders, a man many years her junior, who ironically had played in INTERVAL the role of a younger man who falls in love with the aging Oberon. Both were familiar members of the international jet set.    Nominated for Actress 1935: THE DARK ANGEL 1 nomination