(5 of 5)
Small Cafe. In London, as in Hollywood, no one can quite figure the girl out. One friend, Critic Ken Tynan, says that every time Claire has worked in a play, "all the women have mothered her and all the leading men have tried to make her." But anyone who tries to get too close finds Claire elusive. Her chief social activity is going home to mother. The Blooms live in a tiny three-room flat. The largest bedroom is Claire's, and a smaller one is reserved for her 18-year-old brother John when he is on vacation from Westminster School. Her mother sleeps on a daybed in the living room. Claire seldom has dates.
Claire's fame has far outstripped her fortune. She made around $200 a week as Chaplin's leading lady, and gets only $125 a week from the Old Vic. Like most Londoners, she queues up to take the bus to her job, eats in a small cafe across the street from the Old Vic, and is rarely seen in the Caprice or other flossy restaurants. In her free time she goes to the theater or the ballet, and is reading her way through Dostoevsky, George Moore, the Brontes and Jane Austen. She likes to forage among the stalls of the Caledonian Market for inexpensive antiques, which she gives away for Christmas presents. She also likes to shop for clothes. "I don't buy any. I just look at them. I'm the shopgirl's despair."
Beyond next spring, when the Old Vic season ends, Claire has no plans. She may do another movie—if she likes the part. But her heart and eye are steadfast on her first and only love: the theater. Says she: "I couldn't bear to be just a film star. I'm much too ambitious for that."
Like all female parts in the Elizabethan theater, invariably played by teen-age boys.