Apparently, a number of readers appreciate it if I report on some of the familiar screen faces who have gone to that big studio in the sky.

Over the past month or so those who have taken their final curtain call include veteran television wrestler Jackie Pallo at the age of 79 and comedy actor and writer John Junkin, who was always on TV in the 1960s and 1970s.

It was also sad to see the Artful Dodger from Oliver, 53-year-old Jack Wild succumb to cancer possibly brought on by heavy drinking and smoking. His co-stars from the 1960s hit film, Ron Fagin' Moody and Mark Oliver' Lester, attended his funeral but the press did not.

Veteran actress Maureen Stapleton has left us at the age of 80 after a successful career which included picking up an Oscar for her performance in Reds made at Elstree in 1981. Finally, we have seen off into the Hollywood sunset two of tinseltown TV's hit stars. The first is Dennis Weaver, who I remember from his days at Chester in the long-running series Gunsmoke but the younger generation may remember him as the cowboy detective McCloud.

Second, Darren McGavin who is best remembered for starring in Kodak: The Night Stalker and Mike Hammer.

Now I bring you, at great expense, a new occasional series on the people after whom roads were named on the Studio Estate in Borehamwood.

The first is about Oberon Close. Long-term street resident and friend Dave Partridge assumed it had something to do with fairies.

I know Dave sometimes sees pink elephants but the close does not boast fairies dancing at the bottom of the gardens.

In fact, we named the road after the star Merle Oberon who began her screen career at Elstree Studios in the early 1930s.

Fellow star Anna Lee once recalled: "In those days Merle was known as Queenie Thompson and we both started as extras at the studio.

"She had wonderful almond coloured eyes and was a great natural beauty. One day I was driving out of the studio and saw this poor little waif standing at the bus stop outside, so I gave Merle a lift to London.

"She came to have a meal with my mother and me and asked if she could have a bath as her flat was very basic with just cold water. It is amusing that 30 years later she was living in a luxury house in Mexico with seven bathrooms!"

She came to the attention of film producer Alexander Korda at Elstree when she had supporting roles in Charles Laughton's The Private Life of Henry VIII in 1933, and Douglas Fairbanks' The Private Life of Don Juan in 1934. The two later married.

She was to co-star with Laughton at Denham Studios in I Claudius but was involved in a car crash which left her with facial scars and the film was abandoned.

Merle later divorced Korda and married a leading cameraman who designed a compact light attached to cameras which would cover her scars.

Hollywood beckoned and she picked up US$60,000 and an Oscar nomination for The Dark Angel with further success in Wuthering Heights and The Lodger. And she helped launch David Niven's career by introducing him to people on the party circuit.

However, Merle hid a secret from the fan magazines all her career. She had, in fact, been born in Bombay with mixed Welsh and Indian parentage. She had a reputation as a good time girl and sadly used to introduce her mother as her maid to avoid revealing her past.

Eventually her screen career wound down but by then she was a millionairess and retired comfortably, having returned once to Elstree in 1951 to star in Twenty Four Hours in a Woman's Life.

Merle died of a stroke aged 68 in 1979. I suspect most residents of Oberon Close will never have heard of the actress but for a while in the 1930s and 1940s her star shone brightly.