By Anna Tomforde
London, Feb 20 (DPA) After finally giving up her resistance to marriage and tying the knot at the age of 66, British film star Julie Christie could be in line for crowning her Hollywood career with - a second - Oscar. The divine Miss Julie, as she is lovingly known in her native Britain, has been nominated for best actress for her portrayal of an Alzheimer sufferer in “Away from Her”.

She won her first Oscar for her star role in “Doctor Zhivago” more than four decades ago.

Christie, arguably Britain’s most glamorous, and most intelligent star, has recently indicated that her role in “Away from Her” might be her last.

She recently married journalist Duncan Campbell, her partner of almost 30 years, at a private ceremony in India, after shunning matrimony for years on the grounds that it did not fit in with her beliefs.

“I could never see the point of being high-profile when I loathed it so much,” the intensely private Christie said in a newspaper interview recently.

“Every now and then, you can do something like an Oscar ceremony, but nobody is holding a gun to your head. You can either choose your spotlight - or you can stay at home.”

“For me, being nominated is just a bit terrifying because I think, ‘Oh God, I hope I never have to get up and say anything’,” she told the Daily Telegraph after her nomination.

Christie says she has reached the point where she just wants a dog. “I want to be static enough in one place to have a dog.”

She says she is as terrified about the latest nomination as she is critical of the hype surrounding the Oscars.

“I think the most dangerous thing is that everything has been turned into a consumer activity, and all this is pure market.”

Christie, whose other credits include “Far From the Madding Crowd” (1967), “Darling” (1965) and “Heat and Dust” (1983), remains a 1960s icon in Britain, where she first injected sensual life into cinema in John Schlesinger’s “Billy Liar” in 1963.

But it was her role as Lara in Schlesinger’s production of the Boris Pasternak novel “Doctor Zhivago” that brought her world fame.

Christie’s beauty made her the face of the 60s and, for a time, she was the world’s most photographed woman.

Ronald Curram, her co-star in “Darling”, once told her that her smile was so powerful she needed to use it sparingly.

Christie became an outspoken human rights and environmental campaigner in her later life, but said she was happiest as a hippie.

“I think being a hippie was the most alluring thing. But I got famous so early, and you can’t be a hippie and be famous.”

“I was constantly dabbling but it was interfering with my being famous. I’m a very conflicted personality,” she told the Daily Telegraph.

Christie was born in Chabua, in Assam in India, where her father was a tea planter, April 14, 1941. Her mother, Rosemary, was a Welsh-born painter and childhood friend of actor Richard Burton.

After her parents divorced during her childhood, Christie spent time with her mother in rural Wales.

“My mother was wise and frugal … the world of celebrity did not mean a single thing to her, which is why I take all the celeb stuff with a pinch of salt,” said Christie.
DPA