page_title: Claire Bloom
section_title: Film
hierarchical_section_title: Claire Bloom / Acting career / Film
caption_attribution_description: English: Photo of Claire Bloom and Richard Burton from a March 1956 issue of Screenland Plus TV Land. Note that the uploaded photo is larger and of better quality than the magazine photo. A search for renewal was done at copyright.gov using the title "Screenland". There were no renewals for the title; the 3 listings for it are newer original registrations and they are not for publications. There's no evidence of renewal for the magazine.
context_page_description: Patricia Claire Blume, CBE, better known by her stage name Claire Bloom, is an English film and stage actress whose career has spanned over six decades. She is known for leading roles in plays such as A Streetcar Named Desire, A Doll's House, and Long Day's Journey into Night, and has starred in nearly sixty films.
  After a childhood in England and the US, Bloom studied drama. She debuted on the London stage when she was sixteen and soon took roles in various Shakespeare plays. They included Hamlet, in which she played Ophelia alongside Richard Burton. For her Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, critic Kenneth Tynan stated it was "the best Juliet I've ever seen". After she starred as Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire, its playwright, Tennessee Williams, stated, "I declare myself absolutely wild about Claire Bloom".
  In 1952, Bloom was discovered by Hollywood film star Charlie Chaplin to co-star alongside him in Limelight. During her film career, she starred alongside numerous major actors, including Richard Burton, Laurence Olivier, John Gielgud, Paul Scofield, Ralph Richardson, Yul Brynner, George C.
context_section_description: Bloom's first film role was in the 1948 film The Blind Goddess. She trained at the Rank Organisation's charm school but did not stay with that company for long.
  Her international screen debut came in the 1952 film Limelight, when she was chosen by Charlie Chaplin, who also directed, to co-star alongside him. The film catapulted Bloom to stardom, and remains one of her most memorable roles. Biographer Dan Kamin states that Limelight is a similar story to Chaplin's City Lights, made twenty years earlier, in which Chaplin also helps a heroine overcome a physical handicap. In this film, Bloom plays a suicidal ballerina who "suffers from hysterical paralysis".
  The film had personal meaning for Chaplin as it contained numerous references to his life and family: the theatre where he and Bloom performed in the film was the same theatre where his mother gave her last performance; Bloom was directed by Chaplin to wear dresses similar to those his mother used to wear; Chaplin's sons and his half-brother all had parts. Bloom states that she felt one of the reasons she got the part was because she closely resembled his young wife, Oona O'Neill. In his autobiography, Chaplin writes that he had no doubt the film would be a success: "I had fewer qualms about its success than any picture I had ever made." Chaplin explains his decision to make Bloom co-star despite this being her first film:
  In casting the girl's part I wanted the impossible: beauty, talent, and a great emotional range. After months of searching and testing with disappointing results, I eventually had the good fortune to sign up Claire Bloom, who was recommended by my friend Arthur Laurents.
  She was subsequently featured in a number of "costume" roles in films such as Alexander the Great (1956), The Brothers Karamazov (1958), The Buccaneer (1958), and The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm (1962). Bloom also appeared in Laurence Olivier's film version of Richard III (1955), in which she played Lady Anne, Ibsen's A Doll's House (1973) for which she won Best Actress award at Taormina International Film Festival, The Outrage (1964) with Paul Newman and Laurence Harvey, as well as the films Look Back in Anger (1959) and The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965), both with Richard Burton. Of Bloom's character in Spy, novelist David Plante writes that "Claire's refined beauty appears to be one with the refinement of a culture she represents as an actress."
  In the 1960s she began to play more contemporary roles, including an unhinged housewife in The Chapman Report, a psychologist opposite Cliff Robertson's Oscar-winning role in Charly, and Theodora in The Haunting. She also appeared in the Woody Allen films Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989) and Mighty Aphrodite (1995). She appeared in the Sylvester Stallone film Daylight (1996). She played Hera in Clash of the Titans. Laurence Olivier played Zeus, her husband; she had also played his wife, Queen Anne in Richard III (1955). Her most recent appearances in films were her portrayal of Queen Mary in the 2010 Oscar winning British film The King's Speech and her portrayal of Eva Rose opposite Jerry Lewis in the 2016 film Max Rose.
caption: Claire Bloom as Barsine, with Richard Burton as Alexander, in Alexander the Great (1956)
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