Monday, September 20, 2010
Actress. She was born Julie Frances Christie on April 14, 1941, in Assam, India, on her father's tea plantation. Her education began at a convent in India before she was sent to England and France to complete her studies.
Fascinated with the artist's lifestyle, she enrolled in London's Central School of Speech and Drama training. She made her professional debut on stage in 1957.
But her first brush with fame came via a BBC television series, A for Andromeda (1961), in which she played an artificial human created from the DNA of a deceased science lab assistant.
Christie made several more television appearances before making her film debut in the comedy Crooks Anonymous (1962).
Her first major film role was as Liz, the friend and love interest to Tom Courtenay's full-time dreamer in Billy Liar (1963). It netted her a BAFTA nomination and ushered her into the big leagues of movie making.
In 1965 she won an Oscar for her portrayal of a beautiful, ambitious, and morally bankrupt model in Darling. She consolidated her career with Dr Zhivago (1965), a love story set during the Russian revolution, the historical romantic tale Far From the Madding Crowd (1967), and The Go-Between (1971).
Christie picked up her second Oscar nomination for 1971's McCabe & Mrs. Miller. In the Robert Altman-directed western, she played Mrs. Miller, a madam, who convinces McCabe to hire her to manage his brothel.
Subsequent films have highlighted her involvement with a variety of political issues, although she returned to more mainstream productions with Heat and Dust (1982), Fools of Fortune (1990), Hamlet (1996) and Troy (2004).
In 1997, she earned her third Academy Award nomination, starring as a former B-movie actress and a wife in crumbling marriage in Afterglow (1997).On January 22, 2008, actress Julie Christie received her fourth Oscar nomination for Best Actress for her role in Away From Her (2007). In the film, Christie plays a long-married Canadian wife who begins to suffer from Alzheimer's, moves into a nursing home and falls for another resident there while losing virtually all memory of her husband.
Christie had a high-profile relationship with actor Warren Beatty from 1967 to 1974. They starred together in McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971), Shampoo (1975) and Heaven Can Wait (1978). Christie is currently married to journalist Duncan Campbell.
