Born in the North London suburb of Finchley. Bloom learnt drama at
the Central School of Speech Training and Dramatic Art before making
her stage debut in 1946. She made her film debut in the role of Eric
Portman's daughter in The
Blind Goddess (1948). 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. She received international acclaim when cast as a ballerina
in her second film, Charlie Chaplin's Limelight (1952). This success
led to her being offered another major film role as Lady Anne in Laurence
Olivier's Richard
III (1954).
Bloom’s success on the stage continued, but she was next cast opposite
her friend Richard Burton in Tony Richardson's
Look Back in Anger
(1958). After meeting Rod Steiger in the play Rashomon, they became
friends and later married in 1959. A standout role as a psychic in The
Haunting (1963) followed before once again appearing opposite Richard
Burton in The
Spy Who Came in From the Cold (1965). In 1969 Bloom was divorced
from Steiger, and remarried Hillard Elkins the same year. By 1979, her
marriage to Elkins was over. In more recent years she appeared in fine
supporting roles in Stephen Frears
Sammy and Rosie Get Laid (1987), Woody Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanors
(1989) and Mighty Aphrodite (1995). In 1990, she married author Philip
Roth, but the marriage only lasted five years. Throughout her successful
career Bloom has played many of Shakespearian women, performing in the
Old Vic, London’s West End and New York. On television she has appeared
in Brideshead Revisited, The Ghost Writer, Shadowlands and The Camomile
Lawn.
