Claire Bloom

Speaker 30:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive.

Speaker 30:05

For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in 1982, and the presenter was Roy Plumley.

Presenter0:31

Our castaway this week is the actress Claire Blum.

Presenter0:35

How much does music mean to you, Miss Bloom?

Claire Bloom0:38

In my life, a great deal. I always have the radio on, radio three, or uh play records when I'm alone.

Claire Bloom0:48

My great joy is to go to the opera. My daughter is studying opera, which has given me a

Claire Bloom0:53

rather a new interest in music that I didn't have before in opera, in opera singers, so that it's opened quite a a door to me.

Presenter1:02

You play an instrument?

Claire Bloom1:03

No, I didn't. I mean, I had the usual piano lessons. That doesn't add up to anything very much. No, alas, I don't.

Presenter1:08

Do you sing or sang?

Claire Bloom1:09

I don't sing. I had singing lessons too. I can say categorically I don't sing. I did dance, and of course that has a great deal to do with music and The rhythms of music

Presenter1:20

How did you do set about choosing your meagre allowance of ape discs to take onto the island?

Claire Bloom1:25

Yes, it is very meagre. I chose things that I would like to hear again and again, assuming that I'm going to be there for a very long time.

Presenter1:33

You're not choosing nostalgically, they're not to recall the past.

Claire Bloom1:36

No, I thought of that, but those are the kind of things you play once. Ah it th these are all works that I would like to hear again and again.

Presenter1:45

Where do we start? What's the first one?

Claire Bloom1:46

The first is Beethoven's Emperor Concerto, played by Maurizio Pollini, conducted by Karl Birm.

Presenter1:53

Which section?

Claire Bloom1:54

the adagio, the entrance of the piano.

Presenter2:57

Part of the second movement of Beethoven's Emperor Concerto, Maurizio Pollini with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Carl Bohm.

Presenter3:07

Were you born in London? Yes, I was. Of Russian and German ancestry, I believe. Was there any precedent in the family for the theatre?

Claire Bloom3:15

My aunt, Mary Grew, was in the thirties quite a w w pretty well known actress. I didn't really see her at her career ended very young, because she was ill.

Claire Bloom3:26

But my mother was her closest sister in age. There were a lot of children, and was very involved in her career.

Presenter3:31

And she talked to you a lot about that.

Claire Bloom3:33

Oh, Mary was a great influence on me, yes.

Presenter3:36

Now, as a family, when you were a child you moved around the country quite a bit.

Claire Bloom3:39

Yes, I moved about a lot and I liked it. I still do. I'm a very restless person. The desert island might be a little confining for me.

Presenter3:48

But it meant a number of schools. That wasn't confusing to you.

Claire Bloom3:51

Well, I wasn't academic in any way. It would have been if I had been. I wasn't. I liked the feeling that I was finishing something and going on to something new. I've always liked that.

Presenter4:04

You and your brother were taken off to the United States. Who who took you?

Claire Bloom4:07

My mother.

Presenter4:08

Where to stay?

Claire Bloom4:09

We were invited to Florida to stay with my father's brother and his sister-in-law. It didn't work out very well, to put it mildly. It's one thing to ask evacuees or refugees, I suppose, as they thought of us, to come, and another to have these actual people living in your house. We had nothing in common, and uh

Claire Bloom4:30

It was very difficult. Eventually, anyway, my mother said that if he my uncle would give us a very small amount of money.

Claire Bloom4:36

We would leave and go to New York.

Claire Bloom4:38

And uh we did. We lived outside in a suburb called Forest Hills.

Claire Bloom4:43

And again that part of the American Adventure was an adventure.

Presenter4:46

While you were in Florida, I believe you had sung on the radio.

Claire Bloom4:49

Well, yes. There was um

Claire Bloom4:52

what do you call it, a competition of of some kind for children when I got there and I entered it, as I entered everything of that kind in those days, and sang I don't know what I sang, but I won this competition.

Claire Bloom5:03

and the ballet school of this little town had heard me and asked me to come free to take lessons, and they put together a a show that was taken around the hotels to make money for the British war relief, and wrote a song for me.

Claire Bloom5:19

Would you like to hear this?

Presenter5:20

Yeah, this is the huh? Yes, left hand.

Claire Bloom5:22

Just the words. I'm a little English girl knocking at your door, driven from my home by the gods of war. Do you have tears in your eyes?

Presenter5:30

Yes, I find it very moving.

Claire Bloom5:30

And it's very moving. Asking about the right to live and share the sun, praying for the night when bombing will be done. It went on in the same.

Presenter5:40

I'm sure he did a wonderful job.

Claire Bloom5:42

Well, I was very successful. I think I was only in now ten, I think. I know I had a very pretty pink dress with pom-poms on the shoulder. I remember that very distinctly.

Presenter5:51

So you couldn't fail.

Presenter5:53

Let's have your second record.

Claire Bloom5:54

I would be very hard pressed to choose which Mozart opera uh and the the between Cosy and and Don Giovanni was extremely difficult. I decided that I couldn't really exist without Cosy Fantute. So here is my favourite moment, the trio, conducted again by Karl Bohm and sung by Janovitz, Fest Binder, etcetera.

Speaker 47:05

All the spirits.

Presenter7:20

The trio Suavisia Ilvento from Cosifantutti, sung by Gundela Janovitz, Brigitte Fassbender and Rolando Panarai.

Presenter7:30

So you were in New York State.

Presenter7:33

Did you have any opportunities to go to the theatre?

Claire Bloom7:35

We had very little money because my father wasn't allowed to send us anything, but twice we did uh once obviously on my birthday I went to see a play called Junior Miss I thought it was wonderful.

Claire Bloom7:47

was the first not the first theatre I'd ever seen, because I'd seen uh Where the Rainbow Ends here in England as a child and Pantomime, but the first play.

Claire Bloom7:55

Then, I guess a couple of months later, my mother took me to see the three sisters, and I was hooked, finished, done for.

Claire Bloom8:03

It was, I thought, a wonderful production with Catherine Cornell.

Claire Bloom8:08

Ah, Ruth Gordon, Edmund Gwen.

Claire Bloom8:11

Judith Anderson, I mean very distinguished. Yes, it was. And to see that play for the first time with such a cast.

Presenter8:12

Very distinguished.

Claire Bloom8:18

And uh that was it.

Presenter8:21

How long did you stay in America?

Claire Bloom8:23

Only two and a half years we started to try to get back.

Presenter8:27

After the first year.

Claire Bloom8:27

After the first year. Yes, and we came back through Portugal in 1943.

Presenter8:32

And when you arrived in London it was firmly in your mind that you were going to be an actress.

Claire Bloom8:36

Yeah.

Presenter8:37

Where did you study?

Claire Bloom8:38

I went to the uh Cone School, which was one of the happiest times of my life.

Claire Bloom8:44

Miss Gracie, Miss Lilly, and Miss Valerie Coombe were remarkable women. I'd in fact studied dancing at their school when I was a tot, and now they had a school that uh you did uh dancing of every kind in the morning ballet and something strangely called musical comedy tap, which I adored.

Claire Bloom9:03

And then in the afternoon you were supposed to do your studies, which none of us did very much I certainly didn't. After that you could take extra things, and the extra thing was acting.

Claire Bloom9:13

I was in seventh heaven, I just adored it there.

Claire Bloom9:16

But my aunt Mary, after a year, I would now be

Claire Bloom9:21

fourteen, thought it wasn't serious enough for me, which is a pity, and found that there was a scholarship going at the Guildhall School of Music.

Claire Bloom9:29

and that she thought I should try for it, which I did.

Claire Bloom9:33

and got it. So I left the Cone School and went to the Guildhall part time. Then I had to go to a Cramming school to try to get my school certificate, which I failed to do. Oh dear.

Claire Bloom9:46

And what Sir Keith Joseph would say about me?

Presenter9:49

In this little slough of failure, let's pause for another record.

Claire Bloom9:54

Well, this I really couldn't resist taking to the Desert Island because its reflections in the water.

Claire Bloom10:00

Debussy Image, played by Michelangeli.

Presenter11:04

Michelangeli playing Reflections in the Water from Image by Debussy.

Presenter11:10

What was your first stage appearance?

Claire Bloom11:12

My first real stage appearance was at the Oxford Rep in a play by James Bridie called It Depends What You Mean as a Sergeant or Private, I suppose. I don't think I could ever have been a Sergeant. I'm surprised I was a Private. Jesse Killegrew in the ATS.

Claire Bloom11:28

in a uniform that had been hired from some ATS unit nearby, very large, held together with safety pins, all of which came undone on the first night and the thing gradually disintegrated.

Presenter11:39

How long before you were in the West End?

Claire Bloom11:41

Well, I was only at Oxford for three months, and then I went, so to speak, to the West End, but it was a as a walk on.

Claire Bloom11:48

In a remarkable season that Robert Heltman and Michael Benthall did of First The White Devil by Webster and then He Who Gets Slapped by Andreev, I I simply walked on and understood it.

Presenter11:59

Yes, but nevertheless it was the classical theatre and that was the case.

Claire Bloom12:02

It was the classical theatre and seeing wonderful actors and uh working first with Michael Bentel and then with Tyrone Guthrie.

Presenter12:08

You were tested for a very important film part with Laurence Olivier.

Claire Bloom12:12

Yes, of course I was tested for every possible film part and never got them. That was one, but that was a great disappointment. I was tested for Ophelia in his film obviously his film of Hamlet.

Presenter12:21

It's

Claire Bloom12:23

Ah he had wanted Jean Simmonds, and it seemed for the moment that she was not free, as she was doing, I think, black narcissus.

Claire Bloom12:31

And Robert Helpman suggested me, and Olivier did test me, and

Claire Bloom12:35

was very kind and um enthusiastic, and being sixteen, I thought I'd got the part, or I hadn't.

Claire Bloom12:42

And uh about three days later, having waited and waited for the phone to ring and this great summons to come, I read that Jean Simmons was doing it after all. So that was the kind of blow that you get throughout the rest of your life, so it might just as well begin then.

Presenter12:57

But it wasn't long before you were playing Ophelia.

Claire Bloom12:59

No uh the year after, at seventeen, I went to Stratford upon Avon, again through Helpman and Benthall, whom, as you may gather, were extremely kind to me.

Claire Bloom13:10

Bentle was going to Stratford as co-director with Anthony Quayle and Helpman as leading actor with Paul Schofield, and uh they took me along for the ride.

Presenter13:19

In fact, you played Ophelia to two Hamlets to Scofield and Helpman, yes. And Helpman. Did you find that slightly confusing?

Claire Bloom13:22

Just open Helpman, yes.

Claire Bloom13:26

Uh no, I was madly in love with both of them. Uh that was the only thing that confused me. No, it was it's very exciting to play with different actors.

Presenter13:29

Was there anything?

Presenter13:35

What was the next exciting thing to happen? The Lady's Not for Burning was a lovely production.

Claire Bloom13:39

Yes, it was. Yes, it was. Well, of course, that was uh terrific. It was gil good and

Presenter13:46

A rather promising young Welsh actor, what was his name?

Claire Bloom13:48

Yes, Richard Burton.

Claire Bloom13:50

Yes, it was a lovely production. But the real excitement for me was the next thing I did, which was Ring Round the Moon.

Presenter13:56

Yes, another lovely play.

Claire Bloom13:57

Yes, that I l really love.

Presenter14:00

And somebody in America was wanting photographs of you, but we'll deal with that in a minute. Let's have another record.

Claire Bloom14:07

Much as I love the spoken word, if I did have a very limited choice of records to take with me, I would not take the spoken word.

Claire Bloom14:15

Because I love music too much and I would prefer to listen again and again to music. But I think in this next record I can combine the two things I love most.

Claire Bloom14:24

Last summer I was playing in Chichester near Glindbourne and I went actually the first time in my life to Glindbourne.

Claire Bloom14:31

and saw this wonderful production of Benjamin Britton's A Midsummer Night's Dream, the production by Peter Hall, which was the most exquisite production of anything I've ever seen. That's an understatement.

Claire Bloom14:43

And I would like very much to play um

Claire Bloom14:47

I Know a Bank Where on the Wild Thyme Grows, sung by Alfred Deller from Britain's Opera of a Midsummer Night's Dream.

Speaker 415:25

On the cattle ped with a light

Speaker 415:36

With sway to pass for us.

Presenter15:52

Alfred Deller as Erberon in Britain's A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Presenter15:58

Now there were rumblings of interest about you in America. Chaplin had seen some photographs and heard a lot about you.

Claire Bloom16:06

Yes, he'd heard about me because I was in Ring Round the Moon, playing a dancer.

Claire Bloom16:11

and a a friend of Chaplin's had seen me in this.

Claire Bloom16:14

production and told him about me, and he was in fact looking for a girl.

Claire Bloom16:18

who fitted my description absolutely. And through a series of, you know, sending photographs and uh arranging with the producer of the play uh for me to go, I went to New York and he came to New York and tested me for limelight. Yes.

Presenter16:32

This was

Presenter16:34

Yeah.

Presenter16:34

Or to play opposite Chaplin was as prestigious a job as any young actress could hope for.

Claire Bloom16:40

I think more so.

Claire Bloom16:42

To me he was the and is and always will be the greatest actor of the cinema. I could not believe that my name had even come into his life. Anyway.

Presenter16:52

So you were released from the play to to go to New York just for a day or two.

Claire Bloom16:56

Uh for a week.

Presenter16:57

Yes.

Claire Bloom16:57

I flew there and uh and flew back yesterday.

Presenter16:59

How did you find mister Chaplin? Wa was he intimidating?

Claire Bloom17:03

He was only intimidating because of who he was, not what he was. Obviously you can't forget, and in all the years I knew him, I never forgot who he was and what he'd done. You can't.

Claire Bloom17:15

And then he would do something with his hands or a movement of his head, and of course you thought, Oh, my Lord, of course that's what he did in City Lights But as a man, the kindest, the most charming, the most helpful, the most courteous man you could meet

Presenter17:30

It must have been quite a moment when you heard you'd been chosen.

Claire Bloom17:34

It was quite, quite overpowering and I remember saying to my agent, Oh, uh th thank him very much, but I think perhaps

Claire Bloom17:41

I'd rather stay with the play, because, you know, I was so happy in Ring Round the Moon. It was Margaret Rutherford and Paul Schofield. A beautiful role.

Claire Bloom17:50

It was a very protected life. I went to the theatre, did this lovely play, went home. My mother was there, and this was I knew not only an enormous test

Claire Bloom18:00

And of course not only an enormous chance, but a great upheaval in my life. Perhaps at that time I had had a few too many and didn't want it. But my agent, a very remarkable woman called Olive Harding, did say I think you'll feel differently in the morning, dear. And of course I did. In the morning I couldn't wait to go and to do it. My youthful enthusiasm sort of sprang right back.

Presenter18:18

Yeah.

Presenter18:22

So off to Hollywood. It was a rather special kind of film-making, wasn't it? Chaplin in his own studio with his.

Presenter18:30

Own crew.

Claire Bloom18:31

Yes, again I would use the word very protected.

Presenter18:34

Yeah.

Claire Bloom18:34

When one says Hollywood, uh the most I knew of Hollywood was that once at a party I saw Rita Haworth.

Speaker 418:34

Uh

Claire Bloom18:40

I mean, it was nothing to do with that life, which I did see later, a few years later, and never particularly liked.

Claire Bloom18:47

It was uh Chaplin's life, his studio, his house, going out with him, his wife, his son.

Claire Bloom18:57

A family, a film

Presenter18:58

Yeah, family filmmaking.

Claire Bloom18:59

Oh, absolutely.

Presenter19:01

Let's have your fifth record.

Claire Bloom19:03

When my fifth record falls into the same category as my Beethoven concertos, my Mozart operas, and that is, if you have to choose one Mozart symphony, which do you choose? I chose the Paris Symphony, conducted again by Karl Bohr.

Presenter20:18

The second movement of Mozart's Paris Symphony, number thirty-one in D major, the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Karl Bohm.

Presenter20:27

Back to London to wait for Limelight to be released. You were, I suppose, about the the hottest property in the theatre at that time. Everybody wanted you. What did you choose to do?

Claire Bloom20:37

Well, you know, all this thing about being the hottest property in the theatre, it's such a peculiar profession. When I came back

Claire Bloom20:43

I was offered absolutely nothing. Really?

Claire Bloom20:47

I was supposed to be coming back anyway to play the Queen in Paul Schofield's Richard the Second, which nobody had bothered to tell me was cancelled till I got home. I was hot property in New York, where they're much quicker on that kind of thing, but I turned things down because I thought I had to come back to do that.

Claire Bloom21:03

Such is the nature of this beautiful profession that I've chosen. But eventually good fortune did come to me through James Forsyth, the playwright.

Claire Bloom21:13

who had written a play for me that I'd done on the B B C, who told me that Hugh Hunt at the Old Vic was looking for a girl to play Juliet.

Claire Bloom21:20

And would I like to do it'? I said, yeah.

Claire Bloom21:23

Transmatic question.

Claire Bloom21:25

Not a bad boy.

Presenter21:25

Okay.

Claire Bloom21:27

So that's what I did. And uh Romeo and Juliet opened a month before Limelight opened in London.

Presenter21:35

Who is your emiot?

Claire Bloom21:36

Anna Bedell.

Claire Bloom21:38

A marvellous Romeo, passionate, italianate Romeo.

Presenter21:42

And then Limelight, of course, an fantastic success.

Presenter21:46

And more films to follow, one with Carol Reed.

Claire Bloom21:50

Uh yes, a good film called The Man in Between which unfortunately followed The Third Man and was

Claire Bloom21:57

By comparison, you know, very pale, because The Third Man one of the best films ever. Uh, it was a very good film with James Mason, and it uh was filmed in Berlin in I don't know, but in the early fifties. It was a very strange place to be.

Claire Bloom22:12

So soon after the war.

Presenter22:13

Yes.

Presenter22:14

and then at length one with Laurence Olivier.

Claire Bloom22:17

Yes. In fact, not so much at length, because everything at that period of my life seemed to be very compressed. Things were happening. Um I'm after that pause when, as I say, nothing happened. I had a phone call. I had met Olivier obviously and I'd done this test with him.

Claire Bloom22:33

But I had a phone call one morning.

Claire Bloom22:36

And there was this quite unmistakable voice, which I won't try to imitate, saying, Claire, darling, have you received my letter?

Claire Bloom22:42

Well, I've always been I'm not any more. I used to be very careless with letters, mail, bills, and this

Claire Bloom22:48

I realized, must have arrived in a brown paper envelope looking like a bill.

Claire Bloom22:53

And I just put it to one side, and I said

Presenter22:53

Yeah.

Speaker 422:53

Uh

Presenter22:53

Alright, just

Claire Bloom22:56

No, what was it? And he said, Well, I've asked you if you would be my Lady Anne.

Presenter23:01

Image of the

Claire Bloom23:02

And Richard the Third.

Claire Bloom23:03

Again, I said

Claire Bloom23:05

But I'd seen Olivier.

Claire Bloom23:08

Oh, fourteen times when he played, Richard the Third at the Old Vicar used to queue every Saturday night.

Presenter23:13

Uh

Claire Bloom23:15

Yes.

Claire Bloom23:17

Yes, that part of my life was very very extraordinary.

Presenter23:20

Well, those were the first films of many. Which, from your long filmed career, do you like to remember?

Claire Bloom23:27

Well, obviously Limite, for every reason. Richard the Third, the man between.

Claire Bloom23:33

Look back in anger, try

Presenter23:34

Of course that's a good question.

Claire Bloom23:34

It's a very good film. The spy who came in from the cold.

Presenter23:38

With Burton again.

Claire Bloom23:38

Yes, and Faggot Beck and Anger too was with him.

Claire Bloom23:41

And the film of the doll's house that I made that nobody saw, I don't think.

Claire Bloom23:46

is good.

Presenter23:47

Let's have record number 6.

Claire Bloom23:49

Record number six is Elisabeth Schwarzkopf.

Claire Bloom23:53

singing one of the last songs of Strauss because I love the human voice, I love

Claire Bloom24:00

woman's voice singing. Hers is the most perfect silver voice that one could imagine, and also her interpretation of the words, of the libretto of anything that she sang, was so brilliantly intuitive and intelligent and fascinating that you get again

Claire Bloom24:19

The combination that I love so of the

Claire Bloom24:22

Words and the music.

Speaker 425:09

That's it.

Presenter25:24

Elizabeth Schwartzkopf and the opening of one of the Richard Strauss' Four Last songs, September.

Presenter25:30

Now we've been talking about films. The theatre, once again a a long list of parts, Rosmer Holm and Hedder Gabler.

Claire Bloom25:39

The big ones.

Presenter25:39

The big one.

Presenter25:41

You said somewhere that your favourite part in the theatre was Blanche Dubois in a street car named Desire. Do you still feel that?

Claire Bloom25:47

Yeah.

Presenter25:47

Yeah.

Claire Bloom25:47

Uh

Presenter25:47

Uh

Claire Bloom25:47

Uh

Presenter25:47

Yeah.

Claire Bloom25:48

I do. I can't believe, apart from Heda, that there's any and and even Heda is not as demanding a role as Blanche. It is the most perfectly constructed play, every line, every scene, every act.

Claire Bloom26:02

is utterly perfect and uh

Claire Bloom26:06

Blanche in her.

Claire Bloom26:08

Poor pathetic attempts to

Claire Bloom26:11

claw her way out of the life that she's in.

Claire Bloom26:14

is a character that I found.

Claire Bloom26:16

deeply moving and a tremendous challenge to play.

Presenter26:20

You've been doing a a one woman Shakespeare evening i in in America.

Claire Bloom26:24

Yes. It started off really very modestly at the local college called the Berkshire Community College.

Claire Bloom26:31

And it took off. It's very different uh to doing it here, I don't think I would.

Claire Bloom26:37

but they haven't seen much Shakespeare. What they've seen is generally very poor, or they've seen the movies, you know, Olivia's movies, but they really haven't. So it's in many ways introducing young people to things they don't know, which is very exciting.

Presenter26:55

And of course you've written a volume of autobiography, Lime Light and After.

Presenter27:00

It stops, or more or less stops, in the in the early sixties. Are you going to bring the story up to date? Another volume?

Claire Bloom27:06

No, I'm not. I

Claire Bloom27:08

finished it chronologically, so to speak, then, because my life up to then had been, I do think, very remarkable, and the story I had to tell, I believe, was

Claire Bloom27:19

Fascinating.

Claire Bloom27:20

After that I've done some terrific things and I've I've had some splendid experiences and I have a wonderful daughter, but my life was a woman's life, an actress's life.

Claire Bloom27:31

The first part of it was a really dramatic story, and so I chose to construct it in that way. But no, there's nothing more to tell. I mean, if if I live another twenty years, perhaps. But as far as I'm concerned, it is up to date.

Presenter27:46

Record number seven.

Claire Bloom27:49

Record number seven starts off with a bang.

Claire Bloom27:52

It is um Callas singing Suecidio from La Gioconda of Poncelli. I chose it not obviously because the opera is so great, though this particular aria is very wonderful.

Claire Bloom28:06

But because

Claire Bloom28:08

She was the greatest actress I have ever seen. The kind of acting that one longs to see. And Olivier has given one that kind of grandeur. But no actress. I don't think the parts are here for English actresses. I think that perhaps a Bernhardt or Rachel reached that kind of intensity. But I know that Calas in this aria does.

Presenter29:34

Maria Callas Suicidio from La Jaconda.

Presenter29:39

In a practical sense, how good a castaway would you be? Could you look after yourself?

Claire Bloom29:43

Yes, I'm very practical. I can cook, probably pound a palm leaf into a sarong or whatever Dorothy Lemoir did.

Presenter29:51

And of course you used to go to summer camps as a child.

Claire Bloom29:54

Oh, yes, but never roughing it very much.

Presenter29:57

Your last record.

Claire Bloom29:58

My last record.

Claire Bloom30:00

I'd like to read the words of this record because then you'll see why it's perfect for a desert island.

Claire Bloom30:08

My room is shaped like a cage, the sun puts its arm through the window.

Claire Bloom30:12

But I who would like to smoke, to make smoke pictures,

Claire Bloom30:16

I light at the fire of day my cigarette. I do not want to work.

Claire Bloom30:20

I want to smoke.

Claire Bloom30:23

Lovely, lazy, beautiful. That's my vision of the desert island. It may not be like that.

Claire Bloom30:29

And this is Pierre Bernac singing one of the songs from Banalette of Poulan.

Speaker 430:46

But I thought of come.

Speaker 430:51

Lusora.

Speaker 430:59

Fuck.

Speaker 431:14

For a feroci

Speaker 431:27

Must see.

Presenter31:36

Pierre Bernac

Presenter31:37

in one of the Analita

Presenter31:39

By Poole Ang.

Presenter31:41

He wants to smoke. Do you smoke?

Claire Bloom31:43

No, I don't, as a matter of fact, but I'm sure I would find something to smoke if I were alone for twenty years on the desert island.

Presenter31:51

Very good.

Claire Bloom31:51

Very good time.

Presenter31:52

Awful habit. If you would take only one disc.

Claire Bloom31:55

That's turning the screw, isn't it? Yes.

Presenter31:55

That's turning the screw, isn't it?

Claire Bloom31:59

I would take the trio from Cosy.

Presenter32:01

Uh

Claire Bloom32:01

I would take cosi.

Presenter32:02

Well, you wouldn't get the hold of it. You'd just get one disk from it.

Claire Bloom32:03

Well, I'd get the disc containing the trio from Christian.

Presenter32:07

Present to the

Claire Bloom32:08

It goes.

Presenter32:08

Stefan Tutte, and one luxury to have with you.

Claire Bloom32:11

So I thought about this very carefully and I decided an espresso machine.

Claire Bloom32:16

and a pound of coffee. That's the most important thing, much more important than a Faberge egg or a

Presenter32:23

Life is

Claire Bloom32:23

Yes, or

Claire Bloom32:25

Life is is worthless without coffee in the morning.

Presenter32:27

You must have more than a pound.

Claire Bloom32:29

Well, if I'm allowed more than a pound, they're a great chest of.

Presenter32:30

And if I'm

Claire Bloom32:32

Espresso coffee.

Presenter32:33

It's a terrific coffee machine to last at least for three or four cups a day while you stay there.

Claire Bloom32:38

Yes, yes, please.

Presenter32:39

And one book, you have the Bible and Shakespeare.

Claire Bloom32:42

Do I have to take the Bible? I haven't opened it since I was at school.

Presenter32:46

Well, they're there if you want them.

Claire Bloom32:47

They're there if I want them. Well, there's some good things there, too. Well, again, I'm torn between Beatrix Potter, A Tale of Peter Rabbit, one of the most exquisite books ever written,

Claire Bloom32:57

or war and peace, or remembrance of things past, both of which are nice and long.

Claire Bloom33:03

and both of which are magnificent. I've chosen to take

Claire Bloom33:06

I assume the whole lot in one volume, remembrance of things past.

Presenter33:10

Oh, that's alright, yes.

Claire Bloom33:11

Yes, Proust because it's inexhaustible reading. One can find all of life, the whole of life cycle in it and pick it up at any point and be totally fascinated.

Presenter33:24

Will you have it in French or translate?

Claire Bloom33:25

Noah Las in English, with the wonderful Scott Moncreef translation.

Presenter33:29

You shall have it. And thank you, Claire Bloom, for letting us hear your Desert Island Discs.

Claire Bloom33:34

Thank you.

Presenter33:35

Goodbye, everyone.

Speaker 333:43

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Islandists Archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk/slash radio four.