The secret Indian sister who haunts actress Julie
Christie
By ANTONIA HOYLE, in London, and
SIMON PARRY, in Assam, India - More
by this author »Last
updated at 08:18am on 11th February 2008
As she poses on the red carpet at tonight's Baftas
ceremony, Julie Christie will present the self-assured
public face of an actress at the top of her profession.
Her confidence is not hard to understand: she is
heavily tipped to win the Best Actress category for her
performance as an Alzheimer's sufferer in the acclaimed
film Away From Her - and it is predicted she
will also
go on to claim an Oscar.
Yet despite her success, Julie remains as elusive as
ever about her private life. Indeed, she has even
refused to confirm reports that she wed her long-term
partner, journalist Duncan Campbell, in November
last
year.
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At the peak of her fame - Julie Christie in 1967
The actress's famously aloof facade has also helped
her keep another astonishing secret - a secret
that has
haunted her since her childhood and which can be
revealed today by The Mail on Sunday.
At the centre of Julie's private drama lies a key
figure she is never known to have spoken of, never
met,
and, according to acquaintances, has gone to every
effort to block out of her mind: her secret
half-sister.
The girl, called June, was the result of a
relationship between Julie's father Frank St John
Christie,
the manager of a tea plantation in India, and
one of his Indian tea-pickers.
Julie Christie's half-sister, June, at the age of
20
Both daughters grew up on the stunning plains of
Assam in North-East India and, on the surface,
it was
Julie, with her outgoing nature, pretty blonde charm and
feisty sense of fun, who had the
better deal.
Yet it was half-Indian, plain and studious June who
was favoured by Frank - a girl from whom Julie
and the
rest of her British family were keen to distance
themselves and anxious to forget.
Julie went on, of course, to become an Oscar-winner,
achieving A-list status with films including
Darling, Dr
Zhivago and Don't Look Now and snaring the likes of
Warren Beatty and Terence
Stamp along the way.
June, six years her senior, enjoyed a more humble
career as a midwife, apparently had no male
admirers,
lived in a modest two-bedroom semi-detached house and
favoured British sitcoms over
Hollywood blockbusters.
Despite their wildly differing lifestyles, however,
both women ferociously guarded their privacy.
June died, aged 70, in January 2005, having told only
a handful of trusted friends about her famous
relative -
as reluctant to acknowledge Julie as Julie, now 66, has
been to acknowledge her.
"June would tell me her sister was a famous
actress but that they never had any contact," says
her friend Binolian Graves, 72.
"She told me Julie didn't want to know her. She
didn't boast about being related to her. It was just
a
fact." Given the extraordinary circumstances of the girls'
upbringing, it is hardly surprising there
was little
love lost between them.
Born in June 1934, June was the result of an affair
between Frank and an Indian peasant on the tea
estate he
managed in Chabua, Assam.
Although he broke off the relationship with June's
mother, barely out of her teens at the time, he
doted on
their daughter, taking her with him to his local
Colonial Club and proudly introducing her to
all his
colleagues.
But in 1937 Frank met and married Rosemary Ramsden,
whose family came from Hove and, like
Frank, had been
lured from Britain to India by the low cost of living
and idyllic lifestyle.
She gave birth to their two children - Julie in 1941
and then a son, Clive. Frank kept his earlier affair
a
secret and continued to support both June and her
mother, financially and emotionally, without
his
legitimate family's knowledge.
In 1947, as the British agreed to Partition, Rosemary
had started to suspect her husband had had
a liaison
with an Indian woman but was unable to prove it.
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Julie Christie during her school days
She left and moved to Gun Hill near Horam, East
Sussex, believing life would be safer there for Julie
and Clive, who were packed off to boarding school.
After she left, Frank, now managing the larger
Jamirah Tea Estate, even moved June into his 19th
Century colonial home, complete with swimming
pool and
grass tennis court.
When Rosemary came back to visit her estranged
husband - staying a month at a time and never
bringing
the children - June, whose mother had two other
daughters, was hidden away until she had left.
After hearing rumours about her husband's
illegitimate daughter, a suspicious Rosemary would grill
servants about his relationship with his former
mistress.
As Binolian Graves, who chose June to be guest of
honour at her 1959 wedding to husband Tim, puts it:
"June told me that Frank's new wife didn't like the
fact he had fathered an Indian child. She didn't want
to
know at all."
Jai Singh, 80, who was Frank's servant for the 15
years he ran the Jamirah Estate, says: "The women
in Sahib [ master] Christie's life did not have a happy
relationship between them.
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Julie with partner Duncan Campbell. She won't say
if they are married
"When his wife came here, June would be quickly
sent away to stay with the family of a local
schoolmaster. The Memsahib [Rosemary] would take us to
one side and ask, "Do you know where
his Indian
wife is? Do you know where his Indian daughter
is?"'
Speaking from the overgrown ruins of Mr Christie's
former plantation home, Jai adds: "We were told
not
to say a word about June. When Mrs Christie asked me
about it I replied, "I don't know, ma'am."
As
soon as the Memsahib had gone home, June would return to
live with her father. They were very
close. He doted on
her.
"There was no stigma about having an Indian
daughter. It was quite common among the plantation
managers. People would treat her as his daughter and she
received the respect that any Sahib's
daughter would
receive."
Describing the girls' father as a tall, striking man
who was hugely popular with his Indian staff, Jai
says:
"We were very surprised when we first saw June's
mother. Sahib Christie could have had his
pick of any
woman working on the plantation. But this woman was very
small and not at all beautiful."
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June with her friend Binolian Graves in 2001
While Frank's refusal to turn his back on June
contributed to his break-up with Rosemary, it may
have
also rankled with Julie, who has said of her days at
boarding school: "I was loved by everyone,
but it
wasn't much good because my parents weren't with
me."
Mohanlal Sharma, a manager at the Jamirah estate for
35 years, explains why Frank's attachment
to his Indian
daughter would have horrified his English wife: "In
those days it was normal for the
English Sahibs to take
their pick of the women for a one-night stand.
"If the woman became pregnant, normally the
master would not support her or her child. But Sahib
Christie was an honourable man and appears to have
supported the woman and her daughter from
the beginning.
"When his English wife was not here, there was
just the master and June. As far as I know there
were
never any other women in his life."
As a boarder at Convent of Our Lady School in St
Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex, and then at
Wycombe Court
school in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, the teenage
Julie - described as
"late",
"disrespectful" and "untidy" by her
teachers - was already attracting admiring glances
from
would-be suitors.
But with her plain appearance and shy demeanour, it
seems that June - sent to a Christian boarding
school in
Gauhati, Assam, by her father - was not so lucky with
the opposite sex.
Mohanlal explains: "When June was in her early
20s, Sahib Christie hoped she would marry one
of his
Indian estate managers - a man he was very fond of - but
it didn't work out.
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First home: The plantation house in Assam where
Julie Christie first lived and its present occupants,
plantation manager Akhid Burman and his wife
"June and the estate manager were very close for
a while and we all hoped they would marry, but
something
happened between them.
"The manager was a handsome young man and June
wasn't beautiful. Unfortunately I think in the
end that
is why he didn't marry her."
Instead, she threw her efforts into finishing typing
courses at the Methodist Chapel in Calcutta,
where she
met Binolian and lived in a Salvation Army Hostel before
returning to Frank on the
Jamirah Estate.
In 1960, father and daughter moved to Malaga in
Spain. Frank's marriage had, by this time,
unravelled irretrievably and he had little contact with his family.
But in August 1963, the year Julie's first film,
Billy Liar, was released, their new life together took
a
tragic turn.
Binolian, now 77 and living near Perth in Western
Australia, says: "June had suffered from a heart
condition since she was born, and Frank returned to
England and stayed with friends while she had
an
operation.
"The day she left hospital, he died. He had a
heart attack while mowing his friend's lawn. He always
said the house in Spain would be June's but never
mentioned it in his will, so it went to his next of
kin
- his estranged wife.
"There was no offer to let June keep the house
or of any funds to help her. June found herself
homeless
and, we assumed, penniless."
In fact, Frank had left June, whom he describes in
his will as his "natural daughter", £5,000 -
a
considerable sum in 1963.
Her friend and former handyman George Whitehorne, 81,
from Goring-on-Sea, West Sussex,
says: "He was a
great father when she was growing up but I very much got
the impression she
was left high and dry.
"But she spoke so fondly of him and went back to
the crematorium in Eastbourne every year to
pay her
respects."
Determined to fulfil her dream of becoming a midwife,
June moved to England after her father's
death and slept
on friends' floors before training to become a nurse at
Chichester College,
West Sussex.
"She worked in a cafe to make ends meet and had
no time for people who couldn't be bothered
to
work," says George.
"She even worked on Christmas Day so she could
afford her studies.
"She was very sensitive if she thought anyone
had any unfriendly thoughts about her because
she wasn't
white. She was proud to be Indian and went back to Assam
several times."
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Julie took to the red carpet at the Screen Actors'
Guild awards recently and still looking as glamourous
as she did at the height of her fame
It is a sentiment echoed by Mohanlal: "After the
Christies left, June used to write letters to the
servants and I would read them out for them.
"They were quite short but would say, 'I am very
fond of you. I will always remember you and I
have
loving memories of when we used to be together."'
Whether Julie, who has never been seen at the Jamirah
Estate since leaving Assam, is quite so
proud of her
Indian roots remains to be seen.
As one childhood friend of June's, who also grew up
in Assam, puts it: "I'm Anglo-Indian. Some
people
are proud of it but others aren't. Who's to say what is
the case with Julie?
"June didn't have any contact with her but I
don't think June was unhappy about that."
Instead, June threw herself into midwifery, a
profession she practised at Southlands Hospital
in
Shoreham-by-Sea and one which undoubtedly helped quench
her maternal cravings.
Bob Chambers, a 57-year-old school security manager
who lived on the other side of June's
semi-detached
house in Goring-by-Sea, says: "I remember once we
had a party where one of our
guests recognised June.
"She had saved her baby's life when his tongue
got stuck in his throat. She absolutely loved her
job."
She didn't watch her sister's films but was, says
George Whitehorne, a fan of historical
documentaries and
the sitcoms Dad's Army and Keeping Up Appearances.
But her real passion was gardening, a hobby she
shared with Julie, who has properties in East
London and
Spain but spends most of her time at her farmhouse in
Montgomery, mid Wales.
According to Bob: "June chose her house in
Goring because of its big garden. She loved
azaleas and
clematis.
"She was lovely to live next door to, always
inviting us round for a prawn curry and a bottle
of
wine, and buying us little gifts such as chocolates and
flowers.
"We bought her a glass plaque with 'Perfect
neighbour' written on it, because that's what she
was."
Neither Bob nor his wife Sandy, also 57, who lived
next to June for five years, had any idea
she was
Julie's secret sister.
"I'm amazed,' admits Sandy. "She wore
trendy jeans and tops but she didn't look like her at
all.
She went to keep-fit classes and had a wardrobe
full of beautiful dresses but she never wore them."
At 4ft 10in, she was only just tall enough to see
over the couple's garden fence.
"She was tiny and frail," says Sandy.
"Towards the end of her life she got even thinner.
We
worried about her but she said she was fine."
June died on January 11, 2005. Her official causes of
death are bronchopneumonia and, more
poignantly, frailty
of old age.
"She started going downhill six months before
she died," says George, who was also unaware
of her
celebrity connection. "Her digestive organs weren't
working properly."
It seems June - whose two sisters, mother and, of
course, father, had all died of heart failure at
an
early age and who sent her own doctor a hamper every
Christmas for keeping her healthy -
simply felt lucky to
have lived for so long.
"Three days before she passed away she went into
a nursing home," says George.
"I told her they would build her up in there.
She said, 'I don't want building up. My body's had
enough.'"
The Chambers helped arrange her funeral in
Goring-on-Sea. "We had to go through her address
book and look at her Christmas cards to find out who to
ask," says Sandy.
"There weren't many people there - and Julie
definitely wasn't one of them."
Last week Julie's brother Clive, now retired from his
job as a lecturer at Hull University, refused to
discuss
his half-sister.
The Mail on Sunday made several attempts to contact
Julie Christie for comment but she failed
to respond.
Whether or not the actress regrets not meeting her
sibling is a secret she may well take to her
own grave.
But as she walks down the red carpet tonight, she
might spare a thought for the sister she never
knew, yet
who had such an impact on her life.