Julie Frances Christie (born 14 April 1940)[1] is a British actress. Christie's accolades include an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, a Golden Globe, and a Screen Actors Guild Award. She has appeared in six films ranked in the British Film Institute's BFI Top 100 British films of the 20th century, and in 1997, she received the BAFTA Fellowship for lifetime achievement.
Julie Christie | |
|---|---|
 Christie in 1997 | |
| Born | Julie Frances Christie 14 April 1940 |
| Nationality | British |
| Education | Central School of Speech and Drama |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Years active | 1957–2017 |
| Spouse | Duncan Campbell |
| Partner | Don Bessant (1962–1967) |
Christie's breakthrough film role was in Billy Liar (1963). She came to international attention for her performances in Darling (1965), for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress, and Doctor Zhivago (also 1965), the eighth highest-grossing film of all time after adjustment for inflation.[2] She continued to receive Academy Award nominations, for McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971), Afterglow (1997) and Away from Her (2007).
In addition, Christie starred in Fahrenheit 451 (1966), Far from the Madding Crowd (1967), Petulia (1968), The Go-Between (1971), Don't Look Now (1973), Shampoo (1975), and Heaven Can Wait (1978). She is also known for her performances in Hamlet (1996) as well as Finding Neverland, Troy and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (all 2004).
Early life
editChristie was born on 14 April 1940[3][4] at Singlijan Tea Estate, Chabua, Assam, British India, to Rosemary, a Welsh-born painter and Frank, who ran the tea plantation where she grew up. She has a younger brother, Clive, and an older (deceased) half-sister, June, from her father's relationship with an Indian tea picker on his plantation.[5] At the age of six she was sent to live with a foster mother so she could attend a convent school in England.[6] Her parents separated when Julie was a child, and after their divorce, she spent time with her mother in rural Wales.[7]
She was baptised in the Church of England, and studied as a boarder at the independent Convent of Our Lady school in St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex, after being expelled from another convent school for telling a risqué joke that reached a wider audience than she had anticipated. After being asked to leave the Convent of Our Lady as well, she attended the all-girls Wycombe Court School, High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, during which time she lived with a foster mother from the age of six.[7] At the Wycombe school, she played the Dauphin in a production of Shaw's Saint Joan. She went to Paris to finish schooling and learn French. She later returned to England and studied at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London.[8]
Career
editEarly career
editChristie made her professional stage debut in 1957, and her first screen roles were on British television. Her earliest role to gain attention was in BBC serial A for Andromeda (1961). She was a contender for the role of Honey Ryder in the first James Bond film, Dr. No, but producer Albert R. Broccoli reportedly thought her breasts were too small.[9]
1960s
editChristie appeared in two comedies for Independent Artists: Crooks Anonymous and The Fast Lady (both 1962). Her breakthrough role was as Liz, the friend and would-be lover of the eponymous character played by Tom Courtenay in Billy Liar (1963), for which she received a BAFTA Award nomination. The director, John Schlesinger cast Christie only after another actress, Topsy Jane, had dropped out of the film.[10][11] Christie appeared as Daisy Battles in Young Cassidy (1965), a biopic of Irish playwright Seán O'Casey, co-directed by Jack Cardiff and (uncredited) John Ford.
Her role as an amoral model in Darling (also 1965) led to Christie becoming known internationally; it also inspired the singer Tony Christie to take his stage name from Christie.[12] Directed by Schlesinger and co-starring Dirk Bogarde and Laurence Harvey, Christie had only been cast in the lead role after Schlesinger insisted, the studio having wanted Shirley MacLaine.[13] She received the Academy Award for Best Actress and the BAFTA Award for Best British Actress in a Leading Role for her performance.[14]
In David Lean's Doctor Zhivago (also 1965), adapted from the epic/romance novel by Boris Pasternak, Christie's role as Lara Antipova became her best known. The film was a major box-office success.[15] As of 2019[update], Doctor Zhivago is the 8th highest-grossing film of all time, adjusted for inflation.[16] According to Life magazine, 1965 was "The Year of Julie Christie".[17]
After dual roles in François Truffaut's adaptation of the Ray Bradbury novel Fahrenheit 451 (1966), starring with Oskar Werner, she appeared as Thomas Hardy's heroine Bathsheba Everdene in Schlesinger's Far from the Madding Crowd (1967). After moving to Los Angeles in 1967 ("I was there because of a lot of American boyfriends"), she appeared in the title role of Richard Lester's Petulia (1968), co-starring with George C. Scott.[18] Christie's persona as the swinging sixties British woman she had embodied in Billy Liar and Darling was further cemented by her appearance in the documentary Tonite Let's All Make Love in London. In 1967, Time magazine said of her: "What Julie Christie wears has more real impact on fashion than all the clothes of the ten best-dressed women combined".[19]
1970s
editIn Joseph Losey's romantic drama The Go-Between (1971), Christie had a lead role along with Alan Bates. The film won the Grand Prix, then the main award at the Cannes Film Festival. She earned a second Best Actress Oscar nomination for her role as a brothel madam in Robert Altman's postmodern western McCabe & Mrs. Miller (also 1971). The film was the first of three collaborations between Christie and Warren Beatty, who described her as "the most beautiful and at the same time the most nervous person I had ever known".[7] The couple had a high-profile but intermittent relationship between 1967 and 1974. After the relationship ended, they worked together again in the comedies Shampoo (1975) and Heaven Can Wait (1978).
Her other films during the decade were Nicolas Roeg's thriller Don't Look Now (1973), based on a story by Daphne du Maurier, in which she co-starred with Donald Sutherland, and the science-fiction/horror film Demon Seed (1977), based on the novel of the same name by Dean Koontz and directed by Donald Cammell. Don't Look Now in particular has received acclaim, with Christie nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role, and in 2017 a poll of 150 actors, directors, writers, producers and critics for Time Out magazine ranked it the greatest British film ever.[20]
Christie returned to the United Kingdom in 1977, living on a farm in Wales. In 1979, she was a member of the jury at the 29th Berlin International Film Festival.[21] Never a prolific actress, even at the height of her career, Christie turned down many high-profile film roles, including Anne of the Thousand Days, They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, Nicholas and Alexandra, and Reds, all of which earned Oscar nominations for the actresses who eventually played them.[15][22]
1980s
editIn the 1980s, Christie appeared in non-mainstream films such as The Return of the Soldier (1982) and Heat and Dust (1983). She had a major supporting role in Sidney Lumet's Power (1986) alongside Richard Gere and Gene Hackman, but apart from that, she avoided large budget films. She starred in the television film Dadah Is Death (1988), based on the Barlow and Chambers execution, as Barlow's mother Barbara, who desperately fought to save her son from being hanged for drug trafficking in Malaysia.[23]
1990s
editAfter a lengthy absence from the screen, Christie co-starred in the fantasy adventure film Dragonheart (1996), and appeared as Gertrude in Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet (also 1996). Her next critically acclaimed role was the unhappy wife in Alan Rudolph's domestic comedy-drama Afterglow (1997) with Nick Nolte, Jonny Lee Miller and Lara Flynn Boyle. Christie received a third Oscar nomination for her role. Appearing in six films that were ranked in the British Film Institute's 100 greatest British films of the 20th century, in recognition of her contribution to British cinema Christie received BAFTA's highest honour, the Fellowship in 1997.[24][25] In 1994, she had been awarded the title Doctor of Letters from the University of Warwick.[26]
21st century
editChristie made a brief cameo appearance in the third Harry Potter film, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004), playing Madam Rosmerta. Around the same time, she also appeared in two other high-profile films: Wolfgang Petersen's Troy and Marc Forster's Finding Neverland (both 2004), playing mother to Brad Pitt and Kate Winslet, respectively. The latter performance earned Christie a BAFTA nomination as supporting actress in a film.
Christie portrayed the female lead in Away from Her (2006), 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 was the first feature film directed by Christie's sometime co-star, Canadian actress Sarah Polley. She took the role, she says, only because Polley is her friend.[27] Polley has said Christie liked the 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.[28]
In July 2006 she was a member of the jury at the 28th Moscow International Film Festival.[29] Debuting at the Toronto International Film Festival on 11 September 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 four Toronto dailies. Critics singled out her performances as well as that of her co-star, Canadian actor Gordon Pinsent, and Polley's direction. Christie's performance generated Oscar buzz, leading the distributor, Lions Gate Entertainment, to buy the film at the festival to release the film in 2007 to build momentum during the awards season.
On 5 December 2007, she won the Best Actress Award from the National Board of Review for her performance in Away from Her.[30] She won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama, the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role and the Genie Award for Best Actress for the same film. On 22 January 2008, Christie received her fourth Oscar nomination for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role at the 80th Academy Awards. She appeared at the ceremony wearing a pin calling for the closure of the prison in Guantanamo Bay.[31]
Christie narrated Uncontacted Tribes (2008), a short film for the British-based charity Survival International, featuring previously unseen footage of remote and endangered peoples.[32] She has been a long-standing supporter of the charity, and in February 2008, was named as its first 'Ambassador'.[33] She appeared in a segment of the film, New York, I Love You (also 2008), written by Anthony Minghella, directed by Shekhar Kapur and co-starring Shia LaBeouf, as well as in Glorious 39 (2009), about a British family at the start of World War II.
Christie played a "sexy, bohemian" version of the grandmother role in Catherine Hardwicke's gothic retelling of Red Riding Hood (2011).[34] Her most recent role was in the political thriller The Company You Keep (2012), where she co-starred with Robert Redford and Sam Elliott.
Personal life
editShe is fluent in French and Italian.[6]
In the early 1960s, Christie dated actor Terence Stamp.[15] She had a live-in relationship with Don Bessant, a lithographer and art teacher, from December 1962 to May 1967,[35] before dating actor Warren Beatty for seven on-and-off years (1967–1974).[7] Christie was also linked romantically with musician Brian Eno, record producer Lou Adler, director Jim McBride and photographer Terry O'Neill.[35][36]
Christie is married to journalist Duncan Campbell; they have lived together since 1979,[37] but the date they married is disputed. In January 2008, several news outlets reported that the couple had quietly married in India two months earlier, in November 2007,[38] which Christie called "nonsense", adding, "I have been married for a few years. Don't believe what you read in the papers."[39]
In the late 1960s, her advisers adopted a very complex scheme in an attempt to reduce her tax liability, giving rise to the leading case of Black Nominees Ltd v Nicol (Inspector of Taxes). The case was heard by Judge Sydney Templeman (who later became Lord Templeman), who gave judgement in favour of the Inland Revenue, ruling that the scheme was ineffective.[40]
She is active in various causes, including animal rights, environmental protection, and the anti-nuclear power movement. She is a Patron of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign,[41] as well as Reprieve,[42] and the CFS/ME charity Action for ME.[43] Christie is a vegetarian.[44]
Acting credits
editFilms
edit| Year | Title | Role(s) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1962 | Crooks Anonymous | Babette LaVern | |
| The Fast Lady | Claire Chingford | ||
| 1963 | Billy Liar | Liz | |
| 1965 | Young Cassidy | Daisy Battles | |
| Darling | Diana Scott | ||
| Doctor Zhivago | Lara Antipova | ||
| 1966 | Fahrenheit 451 | Clarisse / Linda Montag | |
| 1967 | Far from the Madding Crowd | Bathsheba Everdene | |
| 1968 | Petulia | Petulia Danner | |
| 1969 | In Search of Gregory | Catherine Morelli | |
| 1971 | The Go-Between | Marian Maudsley (Lady Trimingham) | |
| McCabe & Mrs. Miller | Constance Miller | ||
| 1973 | Don't Look Now | Laura Baxter | |
| 1975 | Shampoo | Jackie Shawn | |
| Nashville | Herself | ||
| 1977 | Demon Seed | Susan Harris | |
| 1978 | Heaven Can Wait | Betty Logan | |
| 1981 | Memoirs of a Survivor | "D" | |
| 1982 | The Return of the Soldier | Kitty Baldry | |
| Les quarantièmes rugissants | Catherine Dantec | ||
| 1983 | Heat and Dust | Anne | |
| The Gold Diggers | Ruby | ||
| 1986 | Champagne amer | Betty Rivière | |
| Power | Ellen Freeman | ||
| Miss Mary | Mary Mulligan | ||
| 1990 | Fools of Fortune | Mrs. Ellie Quinton | |
| 1996 | Dragonheart | Queen Aislinn | |
| Hamlet | Gertrude | ||
| 1997 | Afterglow | Phyllis Mann | |
| 1999 | The Miracle Maker | Rachael | voice |
| 2001 | Belphegor, Phantom of the Louvre | Glenda Spender | |
| No Such Thing | Dr. Anna | ||
| 2002 | I'm with Lucy | Dori | |
| Snapshots | Narma | ||
| 2004 | Troy | Thetis | |
| Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban | Madam Rosmerta | ||
| Finding Neverland | Mrs. Emma du Maurier | ||
| 2005 | The Secret Life of Words | Inge | |
| 2006 | Away from Her | Fiona Anderson | |
| 2008 | New York, I Love You | Isabelle | Segment: "Shekhar Kapur" |
| 2009 | Glorious 39 | Elizabeth | |
| 2011 | Red Riding Hood | Grandmother | |
| 2012 | The Company You Keep | Mimi Lurie | |
| 2017 | The Bookshop | Narrator |
Television
edit| Year | Title | Role(s) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1961 | Call Oxbridge 2000 | Ann | Episode #1.3 |
| A for Andromeda | Christine / Andromeda | 6 episodes | |
| 1962 | The Andromeda Breakthrough | Andromeda | Episode: "Cold Front"; uncredited |
| 1963 | The Saint | Judith Northwade | Episode: "Judith" |
| ITV Play of the Week | Betty Whitehead | Episode: "J. B. Priestley Season #3: Dangerous Corner" | |
| 1983 | Separate Tables | Mrs. Betty Shankland and Miss Railton-Bell |
TV movie from the two one-act plays by Terence Rattigan |
| 1986 | Sins of the Fathers | Charlotte Deutz | Miniseries |
| 1988 | Dadah Is Death | Barbara Barlow | TV movie |
| 1992 | The Railway Station Man | Helen Cuffe | TV movie |
| 1996 | Karaoke | Lady Ruth Balmer | Episode: "Wednesday" Episode: "Friday" |
Theatre
editChristie made her professional debut in 1957 at the Frinton Repertory Company in Essex.
| Year | Show | Location |
|---|---|---|
| 1964 | The Comedy of Errors | New York State Theatre |
| 1973 | Uncle Vanya | Chichester Festival Theatre (and on tour, Bath, Oxford, Richmond, and Guildford) |
| 1997 | Suzanna Andler | Wyndham's Theatre & Theatre Clywd |
| 1995 | Old Times | Royal Court Theatre |
| 2007 | Cries from the Heart | Royal Court Theatre |
Awards and nominations
editReferences
edit- ^ Although most sources cite 1941 as Christie's year of birth, she was in fact born in 1940 and baptised that year.
First name(s) Julie Frances
Last name Christie
Baptism year:1940
Birth year: 1940
Place: Dibrugarh
Presidency Bengal
Mother's first name(s)-
Mother's last name-
Father's first name(s)-
Father's last name Christie
Baptism date: 1940
Birth date: 1940
Archive reference: N-1-606&607
Folio: #93
Catalogue descriptions: Parish register transcripts from the Presidency of Bengal
Records: British India Office births & baptisms
Category: Birth, Marriage, Death & Parish Records
Record collection: Births & baptisms
Collections from Great Britain - ^ "All Time Box Office Adjusted for Ticket Price Inflation". Boxofficemojo.com. Retrieved 27 March 2012.
- ^ Ewbank, Tim; Hildred, Stafford (2000). Julie Christie: The Biography. Carlton Publishing Group, London. pp. 1–2. ISBN 978-0-233-00255-2.
In the spring of 1940, meat rationing had just begun in England ... Vivien Leigh, an English actress born in Darjeeling, India, had on 29 February at a banquet at the Coconut Grove in Los Angeles won the Best Actress Oscar for her role as Scarlett O'Hara ... Forty five days later, on 14 April, there was much cause for rejoicing for Frank and Rosemary Christie, a British couple living on a tea plantation in Assam in India, with the arrival of their first child, Julie Frances. ...
- ^ "Julie Christie profile at Screenonline". Screenonline. British Film Institute. Retrieved 17 July 2013.
- ^ "Christie's Secret World", walesonline.co.uk, 17 February 2008.
- ^ a b "Julie Christie – Biography". HELLO!. 8 October 2009. Retrieved 30 March 2023.
- ^ a b c d Adams, Tim (1 April 2007). "The divine Miss Julie". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 7 May 2010.
- ^ Sirota, David (12 June 2001). "Salon.com". Archive.salon.com. Retrieved 30 May 2010.
- ^ "Kiss Of Death", 12 November 1995, New York Daily News
- ^ Barton, Laura (1 September 2010). "Billy Liar – still in town". The Guardian. London.
- ^ Draycott, Helen (25 January 2014). "Erdington star of the stage and screen, Topsy Jane Garnet, dies aged 75". Royal Sutton Coldfield Observer. Sutton Coldfield. Archived from the original on 31 August 2014.
- ^ Greenstreet, Rosanna (27 January 2024). "Tony Christie: 'Who would play me in a film of my life? Oh, Brad Pitt'". The Guardian. Retrieved 28 January 2024.
- ^ Mell, Eila (2005). Casting Might-Have-Beens: A Film by Film Directory of Actors Considered for Roles Given to Others. Jefferson, North Carolina, & London: McFarland. p. 65. ISBN 9780786420179.
- ^ "The 38th Academy Awards (1966) Nominees and Winners". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). Archived from the original on 2 April 2015. Retrieved 27 August 2013.
- ^ a b c "Julie Christie Biography at Yahoo! Movies".
- ^ "Doctor Zhivago (1965)". Box Office Mojo. 15 March 2022.
- ^ Tiffin, George (2015). A Star is Born: The Moment an Actress becomes an Icon. London: House of Zeus. p. 332. ISBN 9781781859360.
- ^ Tom Gliatto (9 February 1998). "Darling". People.com.
- ^ "The private life of Julie Christie", Los Angeles Times, 5 January 2008.
- ^ "The 100 best British films". Time Out. Retrieved 24 October 2017
- ^ "Berlinale 1979: Juries". berlinale.de. Retrieved 8 August 2010.
- ^ "Oscar Augury – Best Actress: Julie Christie is Front-Runner for Her Performance in "Away from Her"". Yahoo!. Archived from the original on 16 January 2013.
- ^ "Julie Christie Making U.S. TV Movie". The New York Times. 12 July 1988.
- ^ "Fellowship", British Academy of Film and Television Arts
- ^ British Film Institute – Top 100 British Films (1999). Retrieved 27 August 2016
- ^ "List of all Honorary Graduates and Chancellor's Medallists". warwick.ac.uk. Retrieved 14 June 2020.
- ^ Olsen, Mark (14 November 2007)."Julie Christie is good at being picky", Los Angeles Times
- ^ Cochrane, Kira (12 April 2007). "I felt like a crazy stalker". The Guardian. Guardian News and Media Limited. Retrieved 25 December 2013.
- ^ "28th Moscow International Film Festival (2006)". MIFF. Archived from the original on 21 April 2013. Retrieved 14 April 2013.
- ^ "2007 Award Winners". National Board of Review of Motion Pictures. 2016. Retrieved 29 October 2016.
- ^ "Julie Christie profile". About.com. Archived from the original on 15 June 2008. Retrieved 8 May 2013.
- ^ "Uncontacted Tribes". Survival International. Retrieved 30 May 2010.
- ^ "Julie Christie named 'Survival ambassador'". Survival International. Retrieved 30 May 2010.
- ^ "Catherine Hardwicke's The Girl With the Red Riding Hood". Dreadcentral.com. 23 April 2010. Retrieved 30 May 2010.
- ^ a b Julie Christie, Anthony Hayward (Robert Hale, 2000)
- ^ "Terry O'Neill obituary". 17 November 2019.
- ^ "Julie Christie Biography". TV Guide.
- ^ "Julie Christie gets married". The Guardian. London. 30 January 2008. Retrieved 7 May 2010.
- ^ Dimi Gaidatzi (11 February 2008). "Oscar Nominee Julie Christie: I've Been Married for Years". People.com.
- ^ [1975] STC 372.
- ^ "Palestine Solidarity Campaign: Patrons". Palestine Solidarity Campaign. n.d. Archived from the original on 2 March 2009. Retrieved 10 March 2009.
- ^ "Reprieve – Board and Patrons". Reprieve.
- ^ List of Patrons at Action for ME official website Archived 4 December 2014 at the Wayback Machine, actionforme.org.uk; accessed 29 October 2016.
- ^ "Julie Christie has done us no favours". telegraph.co.uk. Retrieved 22 January 2023.
- ^ "4th Moscow International Film Festival (1965)". MIFF. Archived from the original on 16 January 2013. Retrieved 8 December 2012.
Further reading
edit- Bell, Melanie (2016). Julie Christie (Film Stars). British Film Institute. ISBN 978-1844574476.
- Ewbank, Tim (2009). Julie Christie: The Biography. André Deutsch Ltd. ISBN 978-0233002552.
- Hayward, Anthony (2000). Julie Christie. Robert Hale and Company. ISBN 0709064780.
- Callan, Michael Feeney (1985). Julie Christie. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0312448511.
External links
edit
- Biography and filmography
- Julie Christie at the American Film Institute Catalog
- Julie Christie at IMDb
- Julie Christie at the Internet Broadway Database
- Julie Christie at the TCM Movie Database
- Julie Christie at AllMovie
- Julie Christie at the BFI's Screenonline
- Interviews
- Pearce, Garth (3 February 2008). "Oscar winner and nominee Julie Christie talks about getting older". Sunday Times. Arts and Entertainment. Archived from the original on 17 May 2011.
- Sagall, Sabby; Orr, Judith (March 2009). "Playing a part against injustice". Socialist Review. Interview (334). Archived from the original on 13 June 2011. Retrieved 20 July 2009.
- Webb, Oliver (23 September 2020) https://www.closelyobservedframes.com/post/an-interview-with-julie-christie. An interview with Julie Christie