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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 who now, in the 21st Century, is considered a cinema icon. Her latest starring role, in writer-director Sarah Polley's debut feature film Away From Her, wowed the critics and audiences attending the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival.

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.

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 Schlesingter'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 '70s, 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) relationship with actor Warren Beatty. 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.

Private & 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 those in the French language, such as 2001's Belphégor - Le fantôme du Louvre 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 deighted 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.

Away From Her

Christie's latest acting triumph comes as 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. Lionsgate, which acquired Away From Her for release in the United States for a Spring 2007 release, is expected to launch a major campaign for Academy Award nominations, particularly for Christie's performance.

Trivia

• Christie was name-checked in the Yo La Tengo song 'Tom Courtenay' from the album Electro-O-Pura

Filmography

• Billy Liar (1963)
• Darling (1965)
• Doctor Zhivago(1965)
• Fahrenheit 451(1966)
• Far from the Madding Crowd(1967)
• Tonite Let's All Make Love in London (1967)
• Petulia (1968)
• McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971)
• The Go-Between (1971)
• Don't Look Now (1973)
• Shampoo (1975)
• Nashville (1975)
• Demon Seed (1977)
• Heaven Can Wait (1978)
• The Return of the Soldier (1982)
• Heat and Dust (1983)
• Hamlet (1996)
• Afterglow (1997)
• Belphégor - Le fantôme du Louvre (2001)
• No Such Thing (2001)
• Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)
• Finding Neverland (2004)
• Troy (2004)
• Away From Her (2006)

External links

• Julie Christie Myspace Group

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