Julie Frances Christie is a British actress. A pop icon of the "swinging London" era of the 1960s, she has won the Academy, Golden Globe, BAFTA, and Screen Actors Guild Awards. Christie's acting work became low-key in the 1980s. Christie has been a long-standing supporter of the charity, and in February 2008, was named as its first 'Ambassador'.
Background
Julie Christie, the British movie legend whom Al Pacino called "the most poetic of all actresses", was born in Singlijan Tea Estate, Chabua, Assam, British India on April 14, 1941. She was the elder child of Rosemary (née Ramsden), a painter, and Francis "Frank" St. John Christie. Her father ran the tea plantation where she was raised. She has a younger brother, Clive, and a (now deceased) older half-sister, June, from her father's relationship with an Indian woman, who worked as a tea picker on his plantation. Frank and Rosemary Christie separated when Julie was a child.
Education
She was baptised in the Anglican church and studied as a boarder at the independent Convent of Our Lady school, 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,during which time she lived with a foster mother from the age of six.[
Career
She made her debut as a professional in 1957 as a member of the Frinton Repertory of Essex. Her first screen roles were on British television. She made her screen debut in the science-fiction television serial "A for Andromeda" (1961) in 1961. Her first feature film role was as Leslie Phillips's wife in the Ealing-like comedy Crooks Anonymous (1962), which was followed up by an ingénue role in another comedy, The Fast Lady (1962). Christie starred in two other films released in 1965, first appearing as Daisy Battles in Young Cassidy, a biopic of Irish playwright Seán O'Casey. In 1966, Christie played a dual role in François Truffaut's adaptation of the Ray Bradbury novel Fahrenheit 451, where she starred opposite Oskar Werner. Later, she played Thomas Hardy's heroine Bathsheba Everdene in Schlesinger's Far from the Madding Crowd (1967), and the title role, Petulia Danner, in Richard Lester's Petulia (1968) with George C. Scott. Then she played in Robert Altman's postmodern western McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971). Christie and Warren Beatty worked together again in Shampoo (1975) and Heaven Can Wait (1978). Christie also starred in The Go-Between (1971), Don't Look Now (1973), and Demon Seed (1977). In the 1980s, Christie appeared in non-mainstream films such as The Return of the Soldier (1982) and Heat and Dust (1983), and generally avoided large budget films. After a decade out of the public eye, Christie appeared as Gertrude in Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet (1996). In 2004, Christie made very brief cameo appearances in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and Troy. That same year, she had a larger supporting role as the mother of Kate Winslet's character in Marc Forster's Finding Neverland, for which she earned a BAFTA nomination. Christie portrayed the female lead in Away from Her. In 2011, Christie played a "sexy, bohemian" version of the grandmother role in Catherine Hardwicke's gothic retelling of Red Riding Hood. Her most recent role is in the upcoming political thriller The Company You Keep (2012), starring Robert Redford.
Politics
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, as well as Reprieve.
Views
Quotations:
All women are aware of that moment when suddenly the boys don't look at you. It's a fairly common thing, when suddenly you no longer attract that instant male attention because of the way you look. I never really knew how to enjoy beauty, but it took the form of a subconscious arrogance, expecting things, all muddled up with celebrity. Then you begin to deal with it. In the 1970s I was amazed to be talked about as a 60s sex symbol. I wasn't that person, as if I were a doll from the past. I had to learn to come to terms with that. It's funny, it's silly, the ridiculousness of having asked so much of celebrity. Then it becomes really interesting and very much part of the excitement of the life you're living now, knowing you're approaching the end of it.
If I don't make films, no one is going to write about me. And most people have forgotten who I am anyway. My life is not interrupted because I am more or less anonymous.
It felt, to me, like a permanent cocktail party, without the drinks. Acting took me away from real life to a pretend life. I wanted that real life back. I am not a dedicated actress, I'm afraid. I never have been.