BIOGRAPHY
Claire Bloom
Claire Bloom (Enter the Actress) has had a long association with the American Repertory Theater, dating back to a performance of her one-woman show These are Women: A Portrait of Shakespeare's Heroines in 1982. She has returned to play the roles of Mme. Ranevsky in The Cherry Orchard (1994) and Mary Tyrone in Long Day's Journey Into Night (1996), both under the direction of Ron Daniels. Claire Bloom's first major acting role came at the age of seventeen, when she played Ophelia at Stratford-upon-Avon opposite the alternating Hamlets of Paul Scofield and Robert Helpmann. Her first London appearance was as Alizon Eliot in John Gielgud's production of Christopher Fry's The Lady's Not for Burning, opposite Richard Burton. Her performance in Peter Brook's production of Jean Anouilh's Ring Around the Moon led to the role of Teresa in Charlie Chaplin's 1952 film, Limelight. Her many films since then have included Look Back in Anger, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, A Doll's House, Crimes and Misdemeanors, and Woody Allen's latest, Mighty Aphrodite. Her many appearances on the New York stage have included major roles in Hedda Gabler, Rashomon, Vivat! Vivat! Regina, and the stage version of Henry James's A Turn of the Screw. On television she has appeared in Brideshead Revisited, Philip Roth's The Ghost Writer, and Shadowlands. Limelight and After, an autobiographical book, was published in 1982 by Harper and Row.