Annette Kellerman, Rose Quong and Merle Oberon were internationally successful 'Australian' performers of the first half of the twentieth century. Kellerman was a swimmer, diver, lecturer and silent-film star; Quong was an actor, lecturer and writer who forged a career in London and New York; and Oberon was one of the most celebrated film stars of the 1930s and 1940s, first in London and then Hollywood. Race and the Modern Exotic explores the lives of these three women and makes contemprary connections between race, exoticism and gender on the global stage and screen.