Listen to Julie Christie on Today:BBC Radio 4 on 21 February 2008...
Julie Frances Christie was born in Chabua, Assam, India as one of two children. Her mother, Rosemary was a Welsh-born painter and her father, Frank St. John Christie, ran a tea plantation.
Julie's parents separated during her childhood and tfter her parents divorced he lived with her mother in rural Wales.
Julie then studied at the Central School of Speech and Drama before getting her big break in 1961 in the BBC TV science fiction series A for Andromeda.
Her first major film role was as Liz in the cinema version of Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall's' Billy Liar. The film was directed by John Schlesinger who was also at the helm for Darling in 1965 when Julie portrayed model, Diana Scott.
That year also saw Julie appear in what many believe as her career-defining role as Lara Antipova in the David Lean adaptation of Boris Pasternak's novel Doctor Zhivago.
The following year Julie won the Academy Award for Best Actress for Darling and in 1967, she played Thomas Hardy's heroine Bathsheba Everdene in Schlesinger's Far from the Madding Crowd
This film cemented Julie's place as one of the icons of the swinging sixties.
In 1971 she starred in Robert Altman's McCabe and Mrs Miller which resulted in her second Best Actress Oscar nomination.
Other notable screen appearances included The Go-Between in 1971, Nicolas Roeg's disturbing Don't Look Now in 1973 and Shampoo in 1975.
Julie spent much of her time in Hollywood during the 1970s and embarked on a relationship with actor and Shampoo co-star Warren Beatty
At the end of this relationship Julie returned to the UK, moving to a farmhouse near Montgomery.
Since the 1970s she has been politically active and involved in many causes,including animal rights, environmental campaigns and the anti-nuclear power movement.
She made fewer and fewer films in the 1980s but made a comeback as Gertrude in Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet in 1996.
The following year she appeared in Alan Rudolph's Afterglow which resulted in her third Oscar nomination.
Julie played a cameo role in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004), playing Madame Rosmerta.
She also appeared in Marc Forster's Finding Neverland in 2004 earning her a BAFTA nomination as best supporting actress in a film.
Her role as a woman suffering from Alzheimer's disease in Away From Her in 2006 resulted in her winning a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress.
On 22 January 2008 Julie Christie received her fourth Oscar nomination for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role for the 80th Academy Awards although she was pipped at the post for the Oscar by winner - Marion Cotillard for her portrayal of French singer Edith Piaf in La Vie en Rose.
It was also widely reported in the press during January 2008 that Julie had married her long-term partner, Duncan Campbell.
