"In any of the arts, you never stop learning."
"Film is different for me now. If the money is good and it's not totally revolting, I'll do it."
"I like to work in Hollywood, but I don't want to live there. I'm too young to die."
"In my day, people didn't do nude scenes. I mean they didn't exist."
"My face has always been my fortune... not my body."
Most famous for her portrayal of the icy Lady Marchmain in (the original, and only) Brideshead Revisited, the beautiful and talented Claire Bloom is 85 years old today.
Formerly Mrs Rod Steiger and Mrs Philip Roth, Miss Bloom famously had affairs with Richard Burton, Laurence Olivier and Yul Brynner, starred alongside a whole array of luminaries including Olivier, Sean Connery, Joss Ackland, John Gielgud, Charlie Chaplin, Paul Newman, Laurence Harvey and Colin Firth, and has performed in every genre of drama from Shakespeare to Ibsen to Tennessee Williams.
We adore her. And here is a mere snippet of her in her most commanding televisual role:
Claire Bloom CBE (born Patricia Claire Blume, 15th February 1931)
Claire is fantastic too in Cukor's THE CHAPMAN REPORT in 1962, as the nympho being handed around by those jazz musicians ..... Her memoirs are highly revealing, she also had a one night stand with Anthony Quinn. She may have been Richard Burton's greatest love - Liz made sure to keep them well apart when he and Claire were making THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD in 1964. Cla ire is still acting now and often turns up on British tv dramas or cop shows. I saw her on stage in London in 1974 as a blonde Blanche in A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE. This is my tribute to her: http://osullivan60.blogspot.co.uk/2010/10/people-we-like-claire-bloom.html
ReplyDeleteI can imagine Liz Taylor's hackles rising around a fellow beauty like Miss Bloom. And yes, she even popped up in Midsomer Murders (the last home of old thespians, surely?) last year. Jx
DeleteLove her!
ReplyDeleteShe always says the same about you, dear. Jx
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