Claire Bloom (Actor)

About her decision to write her brutally candid memoir of her marriage to Philip Roth: "I had a devestatingly dreadful end to what had been in many ways a wonderful marriage and thought it might help me to write about it and help other women. Philip always said, 'Be private in your life and shameless in your work.'" --Claire Bloom quoted in People, October 28, 1996.

Early during their relationship, Roth insisted that Bloom's daughter Anna Steiger move out of her London home: "It wasn't about hatred for my daughter, though animosity may have been the catalyst--it was about control. Philip made character assessments the way surgeons make incisions. He knew I would make any compromise to support our relationship. If I was willing to jettison my daughter in this manner, what could I ever deny him? I know I was diminishing my own character with each successive act of capitulation. These confrontations left me debilitated and unsure, and were to shape many of my future decisions." --Excerpt from "Leaving a Doll's House" in Vanity Fair November 1996.

On feeling herself an outsider: "It's a particular type of temperment. I've spent my life pursuing excellence as an artist, which is what I always wanted to do anyhow. I don't enjoy the life of an actress, but I don't want to go into that. I am interested in the art. I'm a professional woman." --Bloom to David Finkle in InTheater, December 18, 1998.

Roth crossed the line when he gave the tearful, histrionic, actress wife of his novel "Deception" the name Claire. Threatened with a lawsuit, he changed the character's name but still called the husband Philip.