At the age of twenty-one, Claire Bloom

made her Old Vic debut as Shakespeare s

Juliet and was acclaimed by the critic Ken-

neth Tynan as "the best Juliet I ve ever

seen." A few weeks later came the London

premiere of Charlie Chaplin s Limelight,

and she was an international film star. It

was a double triumph, as stunning as any

actress has achieved in the postwar era, and

the beginning of a distinguished career as

co-star to Laurence Olivier, Richard Bur-

ton, John Gielgud, Paul Scofield, Ralph

Richardson, George C. Scott, and James

Mason.

Her story begins, in these memoirs, with

her childhood wanderings a round England

with her uprooted family, and her evacua-

tion to America with her mother and small

brother during the London Blitz. Then

there is the adventurous return to England