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Leaving a Doll's House: A Memoir is an autobiography written by British actress Claire Bloom and published in 1996. Bloom writes about her life, career and relationships, includin…
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Leaving a Doll's House: A Memoir is an autobiography written by British actress Claire Bloom and published in 1996. Bloom writes about her life, career and relationships, including her first marriage to Rod Steiger.
Leaving a Doll's House: A Memoir is an autobiography written by British actress Claire Bloom and published in 1996. Bloom writes about her life, career and relationships, including her first marriage to Rod Steiger. The main focus is on her troubled relationship with writer Philip Roth.
The title refers to Henrik Ibsen's play A Doll's House, in which Bloom had starred on stage and in film as the wife in an oppressive marriage.
Bloom first met Roth in 1966, when they were both in earlier relationships. "To have such a mind as Philip Roth's fixed on your every word and gesture is both daunting and extremely flattering", she recalled of this first encounter. The couple finally began their relationship in 1975, and started living together at an early stage.
The details Bloom shared in Leaving a Doll's House were unflattering to Roth, and created a controversy regarding the true nature of their relationship. Bloom gives details of Roth's illnesses, such as occluded arteries and an unsuccessful operation on his knee. These conditions caused him great pain and resulted in his insomnia, lack of concentration, and when he found sleep, nightmares and ultimately a breakdown due in part, Bloom believes, to the drug Halcion. Bloom did her best to support Roth during his difficulties, but their marriage began to disintegrate. To Bloom's regret, believing that they had spent some of their happiest times there, Roth turned against London and England, and the couple moved to New York. Despite a productive collaboration devising a programme of one-woman Shakespeare performances called Then Let Men Know which involved Bloom presenting studies of Shakespearean female characters and saw her receive transatlantic bookings, cracks were showing in their relationship.
Having received an unexpected piece of good news, Bloom went to visit Roth in his studio two blocks away from their home, only to find his reaction 'cold, alarmed and unwelcoming'. Roth gave Bloom his novel Deception to read at a later stage than usual and Bloom found in it an unflattering description of an Anglo-Jewish family, clearly based on her own, and graphic descriptions of the protagonist's promiscuity which Bloom was uncertain were entirely fabricated. Then came the description of the protagonist's actress wife, called Claire, whose chief characteristics are being boring, middle-aged and constantly bemoaning the youth of his mistresses. Bloom's reaction was to find this portrait "nasty and insulting" and the use of her name "completely unacceptable". Roth returned home bearing expensive jewellery as a "guilt offering"; Bloom demanded that her name be removed from the text, to which Roth finally agreed.
Roth's medical condition deteriorated to the extent that he was rushed into intensive care and placed on a life-support machine. He slowly improved, however, and even his father's death at that time did not set back his recovery. In January 1990, one year after his operation, Bloom asked Roth to marry her, a union which she described as being "of immense significance" to her. Roth contemplated her proposal for a few weeks then accepted via a "charming" note and they were married on 19 April 1990. Bloom describes that she was so happy with his acceptance that she chose to sign and ignore the implications of an "insult" pre-nuptial which Roth had drawn up and which made no provision for his wife should he seek divorce, which in the terms of the pre-nuptial agreement, he was free to do at any time and at will. This document was later to be described by Bloom's lawyer as "unconscionable, the most brutal document of its kind he had ever encountered".
Bloom continued to support Roth as his hoped-for masterpiece produced disappointing reviews and sales. As they retreated to their Connecticut house, Roth fell into a depression, which caused extremes of emotion and severe mood swings during which he could alternately be extremely loving or cruel. Their marriage began to disintegrate; Bloom writes that a main concern during this bleak time of Roth's emotional volatility was self-preservation.
Ultimately, Roth committed himself to psychiatric care at Silver Hill Hospital. Despite seeming initially reconciliatory when he summoned Bloom to visit, Roth described himself as very angry with her and recited a prepared list of her faults, such as 'odd' behaviour in restaurants, looking at her watch and humming to herself, and remarking that it was a pity his father couldn't control himself when he lost control of his bowels. Bloom fel
Source: Leaving a Doll's House (CC BY-SA)
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Initially their marriage was harmonious and improved their relationship, but Bloom describes how in the second year it began to deteriorate as Roth withdrew emotionally: "Perhaps too much harmony had become an obstacle to his creativity". Roth had always had an uneasy relationship with Bloom's daughter Anna (from her marriage to Rod Steiger), and this provided a flashpoint. Despite their having seemed to reach an entente, after one of Anna Steiger's visits Roth communicated to Bloom via letter that her future visits should be curtailed to one week per year and that she should not stay in the couple's apartment in New York. Bloom reached an uneasy compromise by keeping Roth's letter secret from Anna while continuing to let her stay at the apartment in New York, which she considered hers as much as Roth's. When Bloom considered buying a small holiday cottage in Italy, Roth made "dire" predictions about her financial future and grave insinuations about their marriage. Around this time Bloom also discovered Roth had taped one of their phone conversations.
However, as Roth worked on his novel Operation Shylock, believing it to be his masterpiece, their fortunes improved, with Roth hosting to perfection a large and emotional 62nd birthday party for Bloom. Bloom then accompanied him on what turned out to be a successful book tour to promote Operation Shylock, with Roth having developed a fear of public reading and grateful of her support.
