Born in Chukua, Assam, India, Christie made her name in John Schlesinger’s Billy Liar (1963), reuniting with the same director for Darling (1965), in which she gave an Academy Award-winning performance and Far from the Madding Crowd (1967).
She confirmed her status as an international star as Lara in David Lean’s adaptation of Dr Zhivago (1965).
In Nicolas Roeg’s cult thriller Don’t Look Now (1973), she starred opposite Donald Sutherland. She made a trio of films with Warren Beatty: McCabe and Mrs Miller (1971) – for which she received her second Academy Award nomination, Shampoo (1975), and Heaven Can Wait (1978).
Among Christie’s other films are François Truffaut’s Fahrenheit 451 (1966), The Go-Between (1971), Memoirs of a Survivor (1981), Heat and Dust (1983), Miss Mary (1986), and Fools of Fortune (1990).
Roles in later life included that of Gertrude in Hamlet (1996) and an adulterous woman involved with a younger man in Alan Rudolph’s Afterglow (1997), for which she earned a further Academy Award nomination.
She also featured in Dennis Potter’s television miniseries Karaoke (1996).