Julie Christie
| Julie Christie | |
|---|---|
_cropped.jpg) Julie Christie at the Guadalajara International Film Festival in 1997 |
|
| Born | Julie Frances Christie 14 April 1941 Chabua, Assam, British India |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Years active | 1961–present |
| Spouse | Duncan Campbell (2007-present) |
Julie Frances Christie (born 14 April 1941) is a British actress. Born in British India to English parents, at the age of six Christie moved to England, where she attended boarding school.
Christie's first prominent film roles were in Crooks Anonymous and The Fast Lady (both 1962), and her breakthrough was in 1963's Billy Liar. In 1965, she won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance as "Diana Scott" in Darling. That same year, she starred in Doctor Zhivago, the eighth highest grossing film of all time after adjustment for inflation.[1] In the following years, she starred in Fahrenheit 451 (1966), Far from the Madding Crowd (1967), Petulia (1968), McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971), and Don't Look Now (1973). Her late career includes Academy Award-nominated performances in the low-budget films Afterglow (1997) and Away from Her (2006).
Contents |
[edit] Early life
Christie was born on 14 April 1941 in Singlijan Tea Estate, Chabua, Assam, India, then part of the British Empire. She is the elder child of Rosemary (née Ramsden) and Frank St. John Christie.[2] Her father ran the tea plantation where she was raised. Her mother, from Hove, was a painter. [2] Christie has a younger brother, Clive, and an older half-sister, June, from her father's relationship with an Indian woman, who worked as a tea picker on his plantation.[3] Christie's parents separated during her childhood.
She was baptised in the Anglican church 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 risque joke which reached a wider audience than originally anticipated. After being asked to leave the Convent of Our Lady as well, she later attended Wycombe Court School, High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, during which time she lived with a foster mother from the age of six.[4]
After her parents' divorce, Christie spent time with her mother in rural Wales.[4] As a teenager at Wycombe Court School, she played the role of the Dauphin in a school production of George Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan. She later studied at the Central School of Speech and Drama[5].
[edit] Career
[edit] Early career
Christie made her professional debut on stage in 1957, and her first screen roles were on British television. Her big break came in the 1961 BBC serial A for Andromeda, where she played the dual role of Christine and Andromeda. In 1962, Christie debuted in films with prominent roles in a pair of romantic comedies for Ealing Studios: Crooks Anonymous and The Fast Lady. Her breakthrough role, however, was as Liz, the friend and would-be lover of the eponymous Billy Liar (1963) played by Tom Courtenay. The director, John Schlesinger, cast Christie only after another actress dropped out of the film.[6] For this film, she was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role.
Christie became known internationally in 1965 after Schlesinger cast and directed her in her role as an amoral model in Darling. She won numerous awards for this performance, including the Academy Award for Best Actress. Christie starred in two other films that year, first appearing as Daisy Battles in Young Cassidy, a biopic of Irish playwright Seán O'Casey, co-directed by Jack Cardiff and (uncredited) John Ford. She also played Lara Antipova in David Lean's adaptation of Boris Pasternak's novel Doctor Zhivago (1965), which was a box office smash and a Best Picture nominee at that year's Oscars. As of 2012, Doctor Zhivago is the 8th highest-grossing film of all time, adjusted for inflation.[7]
In 1966, Christie played a double role as Clarisse and Linda Montag in François Truffaut's Fahrenheit 451. Later, she played Thomas Hardy's heroine Bathsheba Everdene in Schlesinger's Far from the Madding Crowd (1967) and the title character, Petulia Danner, in Richard Lester's Petulia (1968).
In the 1970s, Christie reduced her screen appearances, acting in only six films during the decade. She co-starred in Robert Altman's postmodern western McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971), with Warren Beatty, where her role as a brothel 'madam' gained her a 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), again with Beatty. She moved to Hollywood during the decade, where between 1967 and 1974 she had a high-profile but intermittent relationship with Warren Beatty, who described her as "the most beautiful and at the same time the most nervous person I had ever known."[4]
In 1979, she was a member of the jury at the 29th Berlin International Film Festival.[8]
Following the end of the relationship with Beatty, she returned to the United Kingdom, where she lived on a farm in Wales. Christie made fewer and fewer films in the 1980s. She had a major supporting role in Sidney Lumet's Power (1986), but generally avoided appearances in large budget films and appeared in non-mainstream films. She narrated the 1981 feature documentary The Animals Film (directed by Victor Schonfeld and Myriam Alaux), a campaigning film against the exploitation of animals.[citation needed]
[edit] Later work
Christie appeared as Gertrude in Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet. Her next critically acclaimed role was the unhappy wife in Alan Rudolph's domestic comedy-drama Afterglow, which gained her a third Oscar nomination.
Christie made a brief appearance in the third Harry Potter film, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, playing Madam Rosmerta. That same year, she also appeared in two other high-profile films: Wolfgang Petersen's Troy and Marc Forster's Finding Neverland, playing Kate Winslet's mother. The latter performance earned Christie a BAFTA nomination as supporting actress in film.
Christie portrayed 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 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.[9] On her part, Polley said that 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, which was written with her in mind.[citation needed]
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. The critics singled out the performances of Christie and her co-star, Canadian actor Gordon Pinsent, and Polley's assured direction. Her luminous performance generated Oscar buzz, leading the distributor, Lions Gate Entertainment, to buy the film at the festival to release the film in 2007 in order to build up momentum during the awards season.[citation needed] On December 5, 2007, Christie won the Best Actress Award from the National Board of Review for her performance in Away from Her.[10] She also 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 January 22, 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.[citation needed]
In 2008, Christie narrated Uncontacted Tribes, a short film for the British-based charity Survival International, featuring previously unseen footage of remote and endangered peoples.[11] Christie has been a long-standing supporter of the charity,[12] and in February 2008, was named as its first 'Ambassador'.[13]
Christie then appeared in a segment of the 2008 film New York, I Love You, written by Anthony Minghella, directed by Shekhar Kapur and co-starring Shia LaBeouf, as well as in Glorious 39, a film about a British family at the beginning of World War II. In 2011, she played a "sexy, bohemian" version of the grandmother role in Catherine Hardwicke's gothic retelling of Red Riding Hood.[14]
[edit] Personal life
In the early 1960s, Christie dated actor Terence Stamp. She became engaged to Don Bessant, a lithographer and art teacher, in 1965,[15] before dating actor Warren Beatty (1967–1974). In November 2007, aged 66, Christie quietly married[16] The Guardian journalist Duncan Campbell, her partner since 1979.
She is active in various causes, including animal rights, environmental protection, and the anti-nuclear power movement and is also a Patron of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign,[17] as well as Reprieve.[18]
[edit] Filmography
[edit] Theatre
- Cries From The Heart (2007)
Royal Court Theatre
- Old Times (1995)
Wyndhams Theatre & Theatr Clywd
- Suzanna Andler (1997)
Chichester Festival Theatre (and on tour, Bath, Oxford, Richmond and Guildford)
- Uncle Vanya (1973)
Broadway
- The Comedy of Errors (1964)
RSC
Frinton Repertory of Essex (1957)
[edit] References
- ^ http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=doctorzhivago.htm
- ^ a b "The secret Indian sister who haunts actress Julie Christie" 11 February 2008, Daily Mail
- ^ "Christie's Secret World", 17 February 2008, Wales Online
- ^ a b c Adams, Tim (2007-04-01). "The divine Miss Julie". The Guardian (London). http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,2047296,00.html. Retrieved 2010-05-07.
- ^ Sirota, David (2001-06-12). "Salon.com". Archive.salon.com. http://archive.salon.com/people/bc/2001/06/12/julie_christie/index.html. Retrieved 2010-05-30.
- ^ Barton, Laura (2010-09-01). "Billy Liar – still in town". The Guardian (London). http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2010/sep/01/billy-liar-tom-courtenay-julie-christie.
- ^ http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=doctorzhivago.htm
- ^ "Berlinale 1979: Juries". berlinale.de. http://www.berlinale.de/en/archiv/jahresarchive/1979/04_jury_1979/04_Jury_1979.html. Retrieved 2010-08-08.
- ^ Olsen, Mark (November 14, 2007).Julie Christie is good at being picky. Los Angeles Times, The Envelope
- ^ "National Board of Review of Motion Pictures :: Awards". Nbrmp.org. http://www.nbrmp.org/awards/awards.cfm?award=William%20K%2E%20Everson%20Award%20For%20Film%20History. Retrieved 2010-05-30.
- ^ "Uncontacted Tribes". Survival International. http://www.survival-international.org/campaigns/uncontactedtribes. Retrieved 2010-05-30.
- ^ Audio - Survival International[dead link]
- ^ "Julie Christie named ‘Survival ambassador’ - News from". Survival International. http://www.survival-international.org/news/3061. Retrieved 2010-05-30.
- ^ "More Casting News - Catherine Hardwicke's The Girl With the Red Riding Hood". Dreadcentral.com. 2010-04-23. http://www.dreadcentral.com/news/37129/more-casting-news-catherine-hardwickes-the-girl-with-red-riding-hood. Retrieved 2010-05-30.
- ^ Julie Christie, Anthony Hayward (Robert Hale, 2000)
- ^ "In brief: Julie Christie gets married". The Guardian (London). 2008-01-30. http://film.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,2249161,00.html. Retrieved 2010-05-07.
- ^ "Palestine Solidarity Campaign: Patrons". Palestine Solidarity Campaign. n.d.. http://www.palestinecampaign.org/Index5b.asp?m_id=1&l1_id=2&l2_id=12. Retrieved 2009-03-10.
- ^ Board Members at Reprieve's web site
[edit] External links
 |
Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Julie Christie |
- Julie Christie at the Internet Movie Database
- Julie Christie at the Internet Broadway Database
- Julie Christie at the TCM Movie Database
- Julie Christie at AllRovi
- Julie Christie biography and filmography at the British Film Institute's Screenonline
- BBC: Actress Christie on Alzheimer's role
- Julie Christie: Beauty that never fades in The Independent
- After years living as a recluse, Julie Christie is suddenly the talk of Hollywood again
- Oscar winner and nominee Julie Christie talks about getting older
- Daily Mail article on Christie
- "Indian sister who haunts actress Julie Christie"
- "Julie Christie writes about the re-release of 'The Animals Film'"
- "Playing a part against injustice: interview with Julie Christie
- 1941 births
- Alumni of the Central School of Speech and Drama
- Alumni of the Open University
- BAFTA winners (people)
- Best Actress Academy Award winners
- Best Drama Actress Golden Globe (film) winners
- English film actors
- English stage actors
- English television actors
- English vegetarians
- Genie Award winners for Best Actress
- Living people
- Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role Screen Actors Guild Award winners
- People from Assam
- Shakespearean actors
