Bloom, Claire (1931–)

English actress. Born Patricia Claire Blume, Feb 15, 1931, in North Finchley, London, England; sister of John Blume (film editor); niece of British actress Mary Crew; m. Rod Steiger (actor), Sept 19, 1959 (div. 1969); m. Hillard Elkins (producer, director), Aug 14, 1969 (div. 1979); m. Philip Roth (novelist), 1990 (div. 1995); children: (1st m.) Anna Steiger.

Made stage debut as Jessie Killigrew in It Depends What You Mean at Oxford Rep (1946), followed by a triumphant Ophelia at Stratford-upon-Avon in Hamlet (1948); came to international prominence as Juliet in the Old Vic production of Romeo and Juliet and her star turn in Charlie Chaplin's Limelight (1953); other plays include The Damask Cheek, The Lady's Not for Burning, Ring 'Round the Moon, Helena in All's Well That Ends Well, Viola in Twelfth Night, Virgilia in Coriolanus, Miranda in The Tempest, Cordelia in King Lear, Nora in A Doll's House, Hedda in Hedda Gabler, and Mary Queen of Scots in Vivat! Vivat Regina!; films include Richard III, Alexander the Great, The Brothers Karamazov, The Buccaneer, Look Back in Anger, The Chapman Report, The Haunting, The Outrage, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, Charley, The Illustrated Man, Three into Two Won't Go, A Severed Head, Red Sky at Morning, A Doll's House, Clash of the Titans, Crimes and Misdemeanors and Mighty Aphrodite. Won Plays and Players Award for portrayal of Blanche du Bois in A Streetcar Named Desire (1974).

See also memoirs, Limelight and After: The Education of an Actress (Harper & Row, 1987) and Leaving a Doll's House (Little, Brown, 1997).