Julie Christie

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Julie Christie
as Lara in Doctor Zhivago (1965)
Birth name	Julie Frances Christie
Born	14 April 1941, age 65 Assam, India
Academy Awards
Best Actress 1965 Darling

Julie Frances Christie (born 14 April 1941) is an English Academy Award-winning film actress. Five-foot-two inch Christie was a leading figure in the glamorous London of the 1960s.

Contents 1 Rise to fame 2 Early career and Academy Award 3 Private and public life and first career renaissance 4 Away From Her 5 Declined roles 6 Trivia 7 Reference 8 External links 9 Filmography

[edit] Rise to fame

Julie Christie was born in Assam, India, then part of the British Empire, one of two children of Rosemary Ramsden and Frank St. John Christie, who ran a tea plantation. She studied at a convent in India (from which she was expelled) and later at the Central School of Speech and Drama before getting her big break in 1961 in a science fiction series on BBC television, entitled A for Andromeda.

[edit] Early career and Academy Award

Her first major film role was as Liz, the friend and would-be lover of the eponymous Billy Liar played by Tom Courtenay in the 1963 film directed by John Schlesinger. Schlesinger, who only cast Christie after another actress dropped out of his film, directed her in her breakthrough role, as the amoral model Diana Scott in Darling (1965), a role which the producers originally offered to Shirley MacLaine. Though virtually unknown before Darling (1965), Christie ended the year 1965 by appearing as Lara Antipova in David Lean's adaptation of Boris Pasternak's novel Doctor Zhivago (1965), which was one of the all-time box office hits. In 1966, the 25-year-old Christie won the Academy Award for Best Actress for Darling (1965). Later, she played Thomas Hardy's heroine Bathsheba Everdene in Schlesinger's Far from the Madding Crowd (1967) and the lead character, Petulia Danner, (opposite George C. Scott) in Richard Lester's Petulia (1968).

In the 1970s, Christie starred in such films as Robert Altman's McCabe and Mrs Miller (1971) (which brought her her second Best Actress Oscar nomination), The Go-Between (again co-starring Alan Bates, 1971), Don't Look Now (1973), Shampoo (1975), Demon Seed (1977), and Heaven Can Wait (1978). She moved to Hollywood during the decade, where she had a high-profile (1967-1974), but intermittent relationship with actor Warren Beatty who described her as "the most beautiful and at the same time the most nervous person I had ever known".^[1] Following the end of the relationship, she returned to the United Kingdom, where she lived on a farm in Wales.

Never a prolific actress, even at the height of her fame and bankability in the 1960s, Christie made fewer and fewer films in the 1980s. She had a major supporting role in Sidney Lumet's Power (1986), but other than that, she avoided appearances in large budget films and appeared in riskier fare.

[edit] Private and public life and first career renaissance

Christie has never married and has made it clear she has no plans to ever do so. Her long-time partner (since 1979) is The Guardian journalist Duncan Campbell, who prompted her reluctant return to Los Angeles, California, as that is where he has been based.

Since the 1970s, Christie has been politically active and involved in multiple causes, including animal rights, environmental protection, and the anti-nuclear power movement. She continues to make movies, including in French Belphégor - Le fantôme du Louvre (2001) opposite Sophie Marceau.

A reluctant star, Christie made a comeback with her appearance as the unhappy wife in Alan Rudolph's domestic comedy-drama Afterglow (1997). Critics were delighted with her performance, for which she received her third Oscar nomination. However, rather than capitalizing on her comeback, Christie continued her nonchalant attitude towards acting. Since her last Oscar nomination, she has appeared mostly in small roles in English and American films.

[edit] Away From Her

Christie's latest portrayal is the female lead in Away From Her, a film about a long-married Canadian couple coping with the wife's Alzheimer's disease. Based on the Alice Munro short story "The Bear Came Over the Mountain", the movie is the first feature film directed by Christie's sometime co-star, Canadian actress Sarah Polley. She only took the role, she says, as Polley is her friend. On her part, Polley said that Christie liked her script but initially turned it down as she was ambivalent about acting. It took several months of persuasion by Polley before Christie finally accepted the role, which was written with her in mind.

Debuting at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 11, 2006 as part of the TIFF's Gala showcase, Away From Her drew rave reviews from the trade press, including the Hollywood Reporter, and the three Toronto dailies. The critics singled out the performances of Christie and her co-star, Canadian actor Gordon Pinsent, and Polley's assured direction.

[edit] Declined roles

According to the Internet Movie Database, Christie has turned down many leading roles in films such as They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, Anne of the Thousand Days and The Greek Tycoon. Christie also signed on to play the female lead in American Gigolo opposite Richard Gere, however when Gere dropped out and John Travolta was cast in the role, Christie too dropped out from the project. Gere changed his mind and took back the role, however it was too late for Christie as her part was already taken by Lauren Hutton. Julie Christie also had to drop out of the leading role in Agatha due to breaking her wrist whilst roller-skating; the part was filled by Vanessa Redgrave.

[edit] Trivia

• Christie was name-checked in the Yo La Tengo song "Tom Courtenay" from the album Electro-O-Pura
• Christie is mentioned by name in the Al Stewart song "Gina in the Kings Road" on his album A Beach Full of Shells.

[edit] Reference

1. ^ quoted by Tim Adams "The divine Miss Julie", The Observer, April 1, 2007.

[edit] External links

• Julie Christie at the Internet Movie Database
• Julie Christie biography and filmography at the BFI's Screenonline
• [1]
• Julie Christie at TV.com

[edit] Filmography

Awards
Preceded by Julie Andrews for Mary Poppins	Academy Award for Best Actress 1965 for Darling	Succeeded by Elizabeth Taylor for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?