Christie was born on 14 April 1940[3][4][5] at Singlijan Tea Estate,Chabua,Assam,British India, to Rosemary (née Ramsden), a Welsh-born painter, and Frank St John Christie, who ran the tea plantation where she grew up.[6] 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.[7] At the age of six she was sent to live with a foster mother so she could attend a convent school in England.[8] Her parents separated when Julie was a child, and after their divorce, she spent time with her mother in ruralWales.[9]
She was baptised in theChurch of England and was a boarder at the independent Convent of Our Lady school inSt 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.[9] At the Wycombe school, she played the Dauphin in a production ofShaw'sSaint Joan. She went toParis to finish schooling and learn French. She later returned to England and studied at theCentral School of Speech and Drama in London.[10]
Christie made her professional stage debut in 1957, and her first screen roles were on British television. Her earliest role to gain attention was inBBCserialA for Andromeda (1961). She was a contender for the role ofHoney Ryder in the firstJames Bond film,Dr. No, but producerAlbert R. Broccoli reportedly thought her breasts were too small.[11]
Christie appeared in two comedies for Independent Artists:Crooks Anonymous andThe Fast Lady (both 1962). The latter was financed by the Rank Organisation, andFilmink magazine argued Christie was "another in the long, long line of classy female stars given early career breaks by Rank, only for the studio to not know what to do with her."[12]
After dual roles inFrançois Truffaut's adaptation ofRay Bradbury's novelFahrenheit 451 (1966), starring withOskar Werner, she appeared asThomas Hardy's heroine Bathsheba Everdene in Schlesinger'sFar 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 ofRichard Lester'sPetulia (1968), co-starring withGeorge C. Scott.[22] Christie's persona as theswinging sixties British woman she had embodied inBilly Liar andDarling was further cemented by her appearance in the documentaryTonite 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".[23]
InJoseph Losey's romantic dramaThe Go-Between (1971), Christie had a lead role along withAlan Bates. The film won theGrand Prix, then the main award at theCannes Film Festival. She earned a second Best Actress Oscar nomination for her role as a brothelmadam inRobert Altman's postmodern westernMcCabe & Mrs. Miller (also 1971). The film was the first of three collaborations between Christie andWarren Beatty, who described her as "the most beautiful and at the same time the most nervous person I had ever known".[9] The couple had a high-profile but intermittent relationship between 1967 and 1974. After the relationship ended, they worked together again in the comediesShampoo (1975) andHeaven Can Wait (1978).
Christie portrayed the female lead inAway from Her (2006), a film about a long-married Canadian couple coping with the wife'sAlzheimer's disease. Based on theAlice Munro short story "The Bear Came Over the Mountain", the movie was the first feature film directed by Christie's sometime co-star, Canadian actressSarah Polley. She took the role, she said, only because Polley is her friend.[31] 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.[32]
In July 2006 she was a member of the jury at the28th Moscow International Film Festival.[33] Debuting at theToronto 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, includingThe Hollywood Reporter, and the four Toronto dailies. Critics singled out her performances as well as that of her co-star, Canadian actorGordon Pinsent, andPolley'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.
Christie narratedUncontacted Tribes (2008), a short film for the British-based charitySurvival International, featuring previously unseen footage of remote and endangered peoples.[36] She has been a long-standing supporter of the charity, and in February 2008, was named as its first 'Ambassador'.[37] She appeared in a segment of the film,New York, I Love You (also 2008), written byAnthony Minghella, directed byShekhar Kapur and co-starringShia LaBeouf, as well as inGlorious 39 (2009), about a British family at the start ofWorld War II.
Pauline Kael, critic forThe New Yorker, once said of Christie that she was the "girl one wanted to see on the screen not for her performances but because she was so great-looking that she was compelling on her own."[40]
In the early 1960s, Christie dated actorTerence Stamp.[19] She had a live-in relationship with Don Bessant, a lithographer and art teacher, from December 1962 to May 1967,[41] before dating actorWarren Beatty for seven on-and-off years (1967–1974).[9] Christie was also linked romantically with musicianBrian Eno, record producerLou Adler, directorJim McBride and photographerTerry O'Neill.[41][42]
Christie was married to journalistDuncan Campbell from 2005 until his death in 2025;[43] they had lived together since 1979.[44] In January 2008, several news outlets reported that the couple had quietly married in India two months earlier, in November 2007,[45] which Christie called "nonsense", adding, "I have been married for a few years. Don't believe what you read in the papers."[46]
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 ofBlack Nominees Ltd v Nicol (Inspector of Taxes). The case was heard by Judge Sydney Templeman (who later becameLord Templeman), who gave judgement in favour of theInland Revenue, ruling that the scheme was ineffective.[47]
^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
^Ewbank, Tim; Hildred, Stafford (2000).Julie Christie: The Biography. Carlton Publishing Group, London. pp. 1–2.ISBN978-0-233-00255-2.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 inAssam in India, with the arrival of their first child, Julie Frances. ...
^India, Births and Baptisms, 1786-1947 NameJulie Frances Christie SexFemale Birth Date14 Apr 1940 Father's NameFrancis St. John Christie Father's SexMale Mother's NameRosemary Mother's SexFemale Event TypeChristening Event Date7 Jul 1940 Event PlaceBengal, India Event Place (Original)Singhijan, Bengal, India
Canadian Film Awards 1968–1978,Genie Awards 1980-2011,Canadian Screen Awards 2012–present. Separate awards were presented by gender prior to 2022; a single unified category for best performance regardless of gender has been presented since.
_(2).jpg)
