Some Sort of a Life

Miriam Karlin is that rare creature: a pillar of the British acting establishment who is at the same time a thoroughgoing maverick. Some Sort of a Life is an autobiography refreshingly free of self-justification and recrimination and full of passion and earthy humor.Miriam Karlin is that rare creature: a pillar of the British acting establishment who is at the same time a thoroughgoing maverick. During sixty distinguished workaholic years of acting she has been a West End regular and RSC company actor a pioneering performer on live television half of a radio double-act with Peter Sellers a stand-up comic a scene-stealing character actor in such films as The Entertainer and A Clockwork Orange and of course the truculent whistle-blowing shop steward Paddy in the long-running TV sitcom The Rag Trade with her catchphrase “Everybody Out!” Parallel to her career as an actor are her lifelong socialist beliefs her unerring sense of justice and her political activism.Miriam’s life also has been a long battle against addiction; to alcohol prescription drugs gambling cigarettes and dieting (she recently revealed herself in the Observer as “the world’s oldest bulimic”) challenges she describes In Some Sort of a Life with great humour and irreverence.