Leaving a Doll's House: A Memoir

In this memoir of personal discovery, loss and renewal, Claire Bloom looks beyond the stage and unveils her true identity. One of the most beautiful and gifted actresses of her generation, Claire Bloom's achievements in theatre and television have been celebrated throughout the world. Bloom traces her fatherless years in the 1930s to her apprenticeship in the British theatre and her rise as an actress in Charles Chaplin's Limelight before she was 20. She recounts professional and personal relationships with Laurence Olivier, John Gielgud, Anthony Hopkins and Paul Schofield, and tells of her long entanglement with Richard Burton. She recalls failed marriages to Rod Steiger and Hillard Eskins, and the book concludes with a stark account of the most important relationship of her life, with writer Philip Roth.