Julie Christie

London, Feb. 12: The secret life of Julie Christie’s Indian half-sister, hidden for three quarters of a century, has been uncovered by a British newspaper.

Millions of words have been written about Julie Christie, who didn’t win a Bafta last night in London but is still in the running for her second Oscar later this month in Los Angeles for her role in Away from Her. But almost nothing was known about her half-sister — until yesterday, that is.

After incredible detective work by the Mail on Sunday, there is now enough material for a remarkable novel as well as a moving film on the novel.

Julie’s father, Frank St John Christie, was a British tea planter in Assam in pre-independence India. By his British wife Rosemary Ramsden, whom he married in 1937, he had Julie (born Chabua, April 14, 1941) as well as a son, Clive, now a retired academic.

What later emerged was that he had had a daughter, now named June, by an Indian mistress, thought to be a teenage worker on his estate, in June 1934.

Although Christie did not continue his relationship with the mistress, the Mail on Sunday says he was an honourable man who remained devoted to June for the rest of his life. June moved with her father to Spain and, when he passed away, she settled in England where she made a life for herself as a midwife.

June herself died, aged 70, on January 11, 2005, without any of her neighbours being aware she was the half-sister of one of the most famous actresses in the world.

Julie was herself a recluse, and June never acknowledged the existence of the other, either deliberately or otherwise. When the Mail on Sunday approached Clive for a comment, he declined to discuss his half-sister as did Julie.

The paper said that around the time of Partition, Christie’s marriage fell apart and his wife returned to the UK with Julie and Clive. But occasionally, when she returned to Assam to visit her estranged husband, he would whisk June out of the house and instruct his loyal servants not to give him away. When Rosemary would leave for Britain, June would be brought out of hiding and reinstalled in the house.

The paper, which sent a reporter to Assam, suggests that of his two daughters, Christie loved June more.

In the best traditions of intrepid tabloid newspapers, the Mail on Sunday also tracked down one of June’s best friends, Binolian Graves, now 77 and living near Perth in western Australia.

“June would tell me her sister was a famous actress but that they never had any contact,” said Binolian, who invited June to be “guest of honour” at her wedding in 1959. “She told me Julie didn’t want to know her.”

The story gets more Bollywood than Bollywood. In 1960, Christie and June moved to Malaga in Spain. His marriage had, by this time, unravelled irretrievably and he had little contact with his family. But he married again and his new wife also had little time for June.

“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,” said Binolian. “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.”

But June was left a handy £5,000 by her father in 1963.

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 was finally able to practise midwifery at Southlands Hospital in Shoreham-by-Sea.

June bought a home nearby with a big garden in Goring-by-Sea where a neighbour, Bob Chambers, said: “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.”

Neighbours examined her address book when deciding whom to invite to June’s funeral. Julie Christie’s contacts were not listed.