Christie has a 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. Christie’s parents separated during her childhood. 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. in 1966, the 25-year-old Christie was nominated for a BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role when she played a double role in François Truffaut’s Fahrenheit 451 and won the Academy Award for Best Actress and BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role for Darling Later, she played Thomas Hardy’s heroine Bathsheba Everdene in Schlesinger’s Far from the Madding Crowd (1967) and the lead character, Petulia Danner, (opposite George C. Scott) in Richard Lester’s Petulia (1968). Christie has turned down many leading roles in films such as They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?, Anne of the Thousand Days and The Greek Tycoon. 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. She has owned a farm in Montgomeryshire, Wales, since the late 1970s, where she spends most of her time, when not ‘at home’ she splits her time between north London and Louth, Lincolnshire.
