A couple of years later, she hit the big time as director John Schlesinger cast her in the freewheeling Billy Liar. The filmmaker than gave her a true chance to shine with his 1963 success, Darling, a film that won the then 25-year-old an Academy Award for Best Actress.
Darling, a fantastic film where Christie plays up-and-coming actress Diana Scott, is the story of a cunning actress sexually asserting her way up the rungs only to be eventually trapped within her own glamour-and-lies web. Despite her star turn -- she was Lara, of the Theme -- in David Lean's Doctor Zhivago the same year, Christie was now a ravishing icon of the Swinging Sixties.
'What Julie Christie wears has more real impact on fashion than all the clothes of the 10 Best-Dressed women combined,' Time magazine announced in 1967, a year after she capped off her top actress billing with Francois Truffaut's Fahrenheit 451.
Photograph: Julie, ravishing in Darling
Also read: Nominee Spotlight: The Coen Brothers
Advertisement
