"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)
