Leaving a Doll's House

Claire Bloom is one of the most beautiful, gifted, and accomplished actresses of her generation, famous for her roles on stage (A Doll's House, A Streetcar Named Desire, Long Day's Journey into Night), in films (Limelight, Richard III, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold), and on television (Brideshead Revisited, Shadowlands).

Now in this startlingly honest yet good-humored memoir, she reveals a private life much at odds with her public success - a life of instability, loss, personal discovery, and renewal.

Claire's childhood in England was marked by financial and emotional insecurity, as her irresponsible yet charming father moved his family from house to house before finally abandoning them in pursuit of yet another get-rich scheme. Escaping into a world of romantic fantasy, Claire discovered a passion and talent for acting that led to a meteoric rise in the English theater and a starring role opposite Charlie Chaplin in Limelight at age nineteen.

Yet behind the professional success was a confused and naive young woman who was ill prepared for adult relationships. Claire describes with great tenderness her long and stormy first affair with the dashing young Richard Burton, a relationship that would reverberate for the rest of her life. She also gives us rueful and witty accounts of her short, unsatisfying liaisons with Laurence Olivier, Yul Brynner, and other costars.

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Valiantly, she revisits the wreckage of her failed marriages to actor Rod Steiger and producer Hillard Elkins, and in the process she captures the arduous life of a single mother - her constant struggle to reconcile personal and professional fulfillment with a sense of family responsibility. The climax of the book is a long and harrowing portrait of her eighteen-year relationship with her third husband, writer Philip Roth, the most important man in her life.

This marriage ended bitterly in 1994, leaving in its wake a turbulent trail of mental devastation, infidelities, and unresolved mysteries. Yet, Claire's indomitable spirit prevailed, and she recounts the process of putting her life together again, reaching a true understanding of herself, and moving on.