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Claire Bloom

 
Artist: Claire Bloom
 
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Biography

Although her career in recording is obviously just a small footnote to everything Claire Bloom accomplished as an actress, at least she brought great comfort to many small children. To a child tucked away in a bed trying to maintain a comfort level in the ever deepening darkness, her voice might just do the trick, wafting across the room from a set of speakers. She might be telling the story of Dick Whittington and His Cat from one of a series of children's storytelling records she made for the Caedmon label, material including the Brothers Grimm, Beatrix Potter, and traditional British fairy tales. It was a period when her popularity with children peaked as a result of her appearance in the 1962 fairy tale blockbuster The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm. She began acting while still a child herself, considered talented enough while still taking drama lessons to be involved in some BBC radio broadcasts when she was only 14. It was that wonderful voice of hers, already getting attention. At 17, she reaped the praise of every important British critic with her performance as Ophelia in the Stratford on Avon production of Hamlet. She made her film debut in 1948, but it was her relationship as a disciple of the great Charlie Chaplin that really launched her career in Hollywood. She has made dozens of films, received many awards, and has acted with every significant performer in theater and stage history, so it is no surprise that she downplays her recordings, not even giving them a sentence's mention in her autobiography for example. Her relationship with Caedmon, which specializes in high-quality spoken art products, began in the '50s and continued for decades, including Shakespeare projects and poetry, as well as material for children. Many of these recordings were done completely alone, her pristine diction and complex shades of characterization providing a rich listening experience. She also took part in collaborative dramatic recordings for the label that often boasted casts as good as a big studio movie, and also performed in the role of a classical narrator with symphony orchestra accompaniment in a recording of Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty. The Caedmon company had begun in the early '50s and lasted almost until the end of the century as an independent before being acquired by Harper Audio. The actress has continued her relationship with the new owners, although what used to be called spoken world albums are now referred to as "audio books." Either way, if someone is going to be reading to you in the dark, it might as well be Claire Bloom. One of her most moving projects in the new series is her performance of Anne Frank's sad life in Diary of a Young Girl. ~ Eugene Chadbourne ~ Eugene Chadbourne, All Music Guide
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Actor: Claire Bloom
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Home > Library > Entertainment & Arts > Actors
  • Born: Feb 15, 1931 in London, England, UK
  • Occupation: Actor
  • Active: '50s-2000s
  • Major Genres: Drama, Romance
  • Career Highlights: Brideshead Revisited, The Haunting, Richard III
  • First Major Screen Credit: Limelight (1952)

Biography

While taking drama lessons at Badminton, Guildhall School, and the Central School of Speech and Drama, Claire Bloom began appearing on BBC radio, and made her stage debut at 15 with the Oxford Repertory. She made her London bow in 1947, and the following year was effusively praised for her performance as Ophelia in a Stratford-upon-Avon production of Hamlet. Also in 1948, she appeared in her first film, The Blind Goddess (1948). While gainfully employed at the Old Vic in 1952, Bloom was selected by Charlie Chaplin to portray the suicidal ballerina Terry in Chaplin's Limelight. Though the film was inadequately distributed due to Chaplin's "questionable" political beliefs, Limelight made Bloom an overnight star -- after only nine years in the business. Her next major film assignment was Lady Anne in Olivier's Richard III (1955), which led to a steady stream of costume roles in films like Alexander the Great (1956), The Brothers Karamazov (1959), The Buccaneer (1959), and The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm (1962). Of her "contemporary" film roles, several are standouts: the sexually unstable housewife in The Chapman Report, the lesbian psychic in The Haunting (1963), the compassionate psychiatrist in Charly (1968), and Martin Landau's Jewish-suburbanite wife in Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989). Her TV work has included Edith Galt Wilson in Backstairs at the White House (1979) and Lady Marchman in Brideshead Revisited (1982). Whenever her schedule has allowed, Bloom has returned to her first love, the theater; her favorite stage role is Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire. Married three times, Bloom's first husband was actor Rod Steiger, with whom she co-starred in 3 Into 2 Won't Go (1969) and The Illustrated Man (1969); her second was producer Hillard Elkins, who packaged Bloom's 1973 film version of The Doll's House; and her third was novelist Philip Roth. In 1982, Claire Bloom published her autobiography, Limelight and After: The Education of an Actress. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
 
Filmography: Claire Bloom
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Wikipedia: Claire Bloom
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Claire Bloom
Born Patricia Claire Blume
15 February 1931 (1931-02-15) (age 78)
Finchley, North London, England
Years active 1948–2009
Spouse(s) Rod Steiger (1959–1969)
Hillard Elkins (1969–1972)
Philip Roth (1990–1995)

Claire Bloom (born Patricia Claire Blume; 15 February 1931) is an English film and stage actress.

Contents

Early life

Bloom was born in the North London suburb of Finchley, the daughter of Elizabeth (née Grew) and Edward Max Blume, who worked in sales.[1] Her paternal grandparents, originally named Blumenthal, as well as her maternal grandparents, originally named Griewski, were Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe.[2] Bloom attended secondary school at the independent Badminton School in Bristol.

Career

After training at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama and the Central School of Speech and Drama, Bloom made her debut on BBC radio programmes. She made her stage debut in 1946, when she was 15, with the Oxford Repertory Theatre. Her London stage debut was in 1947 in the Christopher Fry play The Lady's Not For Burning; the following year, she received great acclaim for her portrayal of Ophelia in Hamlet, the first of many works by William Shakespeare in which Bloom would appear.

Bloom has appeared in a number of plays and theatrical works in both London and New York. Those works include Look Back in Anger, Rashomon, and Bloom's favorite role, that of Blanche in the Tennessee Williams play A Streetcar Named Desire. Bloom has also performed in a one woman show that included monologues from several of her stage performances.

Bloom's first film role was in 1948, for the film The Blind Goddess. She was chosen by Charlie Chaplin in 1952 to appear in his film Limelight, which catapulted Bloom to stardom, and remains one of her most memorable roles. She was subsequently featured in a number of "costume" roles in films sych as Alexander the Great, The Brothers Karamazov, The Buccaneer, and The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm. Bloom also appeared in Laurence Olivier's film version of Richard III, Ibsen's A Doll's House, The Outrage with Paul Newman and Laurence Harvey, as well as the films The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Look Back in Anger, both with Richard Burton.

In the 1960s she began to play more contemporary roles, including an unhinged housewife in The Chapman Report, a psychologist in the Oscar winning film Charly, and Theodora in The Haunting. She also appeared in the Woody Allen film Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989). Her most recent appearance in a Hollywood film was in the 1996 Sylvester Stallone film Daylight.

Bloom has appeared on television, perhaps the most memorable of which was her portrayal of Lady Marchmain in Brideshead Revisited (1981). Other roles included two prominent BBC Television productions for director Rudolph Cartier; co-starring with Sean Connery in Anna Karenina (1961), and playing Cathy in Wuthering Heights with Keith Michell as Heathcliff (1962).[3] She also appeared as First Lady Edith Wilson in Backstairs at the White House (1979); as Joy Gresham, the wife of C. S. Lewis in Shadowlands (For that performance she received the BAFTA Award as Best Actress. (1985), and as the older Sophy in the 1992 miniseries The Camomile Lawn on Britain's Channel 4. Her most recent appearance in a miniseries was in the 2006 version of The Ten Commandments.

On continuing television series, she has appeared on the New York-based Law & Order: Criminal Intent. From 1991 to 1993, she portrayed villainess Orlena Grimaldi on the daytime drama As the World Turns. She also had major roles in several of the BBC-Shakespeare Play television presentations and has led workshops on Shakespearean performance practices.

In January 2006, she appeared on the London stage in Arthur Allan Seidelman's production of Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks by Richard Alfieri, a two-hander in which she co-starred with Billy Zane.

She is reported to be appearing in Doctor Who alongside David Tennant in his final story as the Tenth Doctor.[4][5]

Personal life

Bloom has been married three times. Her first marriage, in 1959, was to actor Rod Steiger, whom she had met when they both performed in the play Rashomon. Their daughter is opera singer Anna Steiger. Steiger and Bloom divorced in 1969. In that same year, Bloom married producer Hillard Elkins. The marriage lasted three years and the couple divorced in 1972. Bloom's third marriage on April 29, 1990 was to writer Philip Roth, her longtime companion. The couple divorced in 1995.

Bloom has written two memoirs about her life and career. The first, Limelight and After: The Education of an Actress, was released in 1982 and was an in-depth look at her career and the film and stage roles she had portrayed. Her second book, Leaving a Doll's House: A Memoir, was published in 1996, and went into greater details about her personal life; she discussed not only her marriages but her romantic relationships with Richard Burton and Laurence Olivier. The book created a stir when Bloom detailed the highly complicated relationship between her and Philip Roth during their marriage. The details Bloom shared were unflattering to Roth, and created a controversy regarding the true nature of their relationship. The character of Eve Frame in Roth's 1998 novel I Married a Communist is clearly intended as a retort.

References

  1. ^ Claire Bloom Biography (1931-)
  2. ^ Bloom, Claire (1998). Leaving a Doll's House: A Memoir. Back Bay Books. pp. 1–2. ISBN 10-0316093831. 
  3. ^ Wake, Oliver. "Cartier, Rudolph (1904–1994)". Screenonline. http://www.screenonline.org.uk/people/id/1181098/index.html. Retrieved on 2007-02-25. 
  4. ^ Lizzie Smith. "Billie Piper returns to Doctor Who to see David Tennant bow out in all-star show | Mail Online". Dailymail.co.uk. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1183150/Billie-Piper-returns-Doctor-Who-David-Tennant-bow-star-show.html. Retrieved on 2009-05-16. 
  5. ^ "Claire Bloom 'to star as mother of Doctor Who'". Daily Telegraph. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/doctor-who/5240633/Claire-Bloom-to-star-as-mother-of-Doctor-Who.html. Retrieved on 2009-04-29. 

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This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

 
 

 

Copyrights:

Artist. Copyright © 2009 All Media Guide, LLC. Content provided by All Music Guide ® , a trademark of All Media Guide, LLC. All rights reserved.  Read more
Actor. Copyright © 2009 All Media Guide, LLC. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Claire Bloom".  Read more

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