Julie Christie

The Woman Who Fled Her Own Face

Julie Christie took the stage at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in April 1966 to accept an Oscar for Darling. She was twenty-six years old, with a gaze that director John Schlesinger described as the face of the decade. But she wasn't looking to be the face of anything.

She was born in British India in 1940. She grew up on a tea plantation before being sent to a boarding school in England, where she was expelled for telling dirty jokes.

And that was only the beginning.

In 1963 she starred in Billy Liar, and her arrival on screen changed the perception of femininity in English cinema. She walked the streets with a chain-strap handbag and a confidence English actresses of her generation had never shown.

In 1965 Doctor Zhivago premiered, and the whole world became obsessed with her porcelain skin and blue eyes. David Lean cast her because he was looking for someone who could embody prerevolutionary Russia with a modern edge. The film made a fortune, but Christie hated mass fame.

Turning down Hollywood's throne

She moved to Los Angeles to work with Warren Beatty and starred in McCabe & Mrs. Miller in 1971. Robert Altman gave her the role of a brothel madam who smoked opium, earning her another Academy Award nomination.

She turned down roles in The Godfather and Rosemary's Baby because she preferred spending time on her farm in Wales. Money and exclusivity contracts with the big studios held no interest for her.

In 1973 she shot Don't Look Now under the direction of Nicolas Roeg. The sex scene with Donald Sutherland was so realistic that false rumors still circulate today about whether it was real or simulated.

And the gamble paid off.

Through the eighties and nineties her screen presence was sporadic. She worked with directors like Sidney Lumet on Power in 1986, but she always put her political activism and private life ahead of commercial scripts.

The Resilience of a Cult Actress

She made a strong comeback in 1997 with Afterglow. Alan Rudolph convinced her to play a mature woman trapped in an unhappy marriage, and her performance earned unanimous praise from New York critics.

In 2006 she starred in Away from Her under the direction of Sarah Polley. She played a woman with Alzheimer's and won the Golden Globe and the BAFTA.

She earned four Oscar nominations across four different decades (1965, 1971, 1997 and 2006). It's a testament to her ability to survive changing trends without playing the industry's game.

She never wanted an authorized biography.

In 2011 she appeared in Red Riding Hood (Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?) playing the grandmother. Her last credited film appearance was as narrator of the documentary The Bookshop in 2017. She lives on an organic farm in Montgomeryshire with journalist Duncan Campbell.