She rose to fame in the 1960s, seducing audiences as the beguiling beauty in the classic films Darling and Doctor Zhivago. But the Oscar-winning star described by Al Pacino as “the most poetic of all actresses” has spent the subsequent decades turning down roles for a quiet life on her Welsh farm.

Yesterday, at the age of 66, Julie Christie secured her fourth Oscar nomination for Away from Her, a film that she had repeatedly turned down.

It took Sarah Polley, the film’s 29-year-old writer-director, eight months to persuade an actress who finds film-making “turbulent and stressful” to play an Alzheimer’s sufferer, her first lead role in a decade.

Christie, who has received critical acclaim for her heart-wrenching performance, turned the spotlight away from herself, saying: “It’s great that all of Sarah Polley’s wonderful work on Away from Her is being recognised. I’m delighted that the film is being honoured in this way.”

Christie was among around 20 British actors and film-makers who were nominated yesterday for Oscars. Their names featured in a list dominated by some dark and violent Hollywood movies.

The crime thriller No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood, a gritty drama about the oil industry, each had eight nominations.

The British stars Keira Knightley and James McAvoy, both nominated for the Baftas and the Golden Globes, were absent from the Oscars list. However, their period drama Atonement, the story of a doomed wartime romance, received seven nominations, including one for Best Film.

Saoirse Ronan, the 13-year-old actress from Ardattin, Co Carlow, who appears in the film, was nominated for Best Supporting Actress. If she wins, she would be one of the youngest Oscar winners and, it is believed, the youngest on this side of the Atlantic.

Tatum O’Neal, named the Best Supporting Actress for Paper Moon in 1974 at the age of 10, is the youngest. Anna Paquin, a Canadian who grew up in New Zealand, won the award at the age of 11 for The Piano in 1994.

Ronan says that she regards Knightley, who played her big sister in Atonement, as her role model. For many, Ronan was the film’s true star in her performance as Briony Tallis, a precocious child whose overactive imagination leads to tragedy.

Joe Wright, the film’s director, described her as an “incredibly smart” girl with an extraordinary imagination. He said: “There’s no mopping-up to do with her emotionally after each scene. She’s doing a scene where she’s crying or scared or intimidated, and we’d all be watching and be scared or crying or frightened. When it was over, we’d be left in that state, and she’d be up and asking where the tea and biscuits were.”

Ronan faces competition from Cate Blanchett, who received two nominations – for Best Actress in Elizabeth: The Golden Age and Best Supporting Actress for I’m Not There. No actor has won two acting Oscars in the same year.

Wright was not on the list of Oscar nominees despite having been nominated as Best Director for the Baftas. Instead, the Academy voters chose Julian Schnabel for The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, which was written by the Oscar-winning British writer Ronald Harwood, who has been nominated again this year for the Best Adapted Screenplay.

Daniel Day-Lewis is the clear favourite for Best Actor for his performance as a tyrannical oil prospector in There Will be Blood. The British-born actor, who won an Oscar in 1990 for his portrayal of Christy Brown in My Left Foot, faces competition from two Hollywood heart-throbs – George Clooney for Michael Clayton and Johnny Depp for Sweeney Todd, the Stephen Sondheim musical that was largely ignored by the Bafta voters.

The organisers of this year’s Oscars are adamant that this year’s show, scheduled for next month, will go ahead despite the strike by Hollywood writers, which forced the cancellation of the Golden Globes ceremony this month.

The event is likely to be picketed by striking writers. Some actors sympathetic to the writers may boycott the event.

Speaking to The Times yesterday, Polley said that she was thrilled that Christie had been nominated for Away from Her and joked that only her “dogged persistence” had persuaded the shy screen icon to take the role.

She added: “At some point, she realised I wasn’t going to go away. There are a lot of things she’s interested in more than sitting on a film set.”

Although Christie is most admired for her portrayal of Lara in David Lean’s Doctor Zhivago, she won her first Oscar, at the age of 24, for Darling, in which she played a model who sleeps her way to the top of the London fashion scene.

Her last major role was in Afterglow a decade ago. Since then she has made only cameo appearances “to pay for my roof to be fixed”, she said.

Paying tribute to her latest performance, Polley said: “Julie is captivating, magnetic and stunningly beautiful. She’s full of life and wonder and curiosity, and it’s impossible not to fall in love with her.”

In the running

Best Picture
Atonement; Juno; Michael Clayton; No Country for Old Men; There Will Be Blood

Best Director
Julian Schnabel The Diving Bell and the Butterfly; Jason Reitman Juno; Tony Gilroy Michael Clayton; Joel and Ethan Coen No Country for Old Men; Paul Thomas Anderson There Will Be Blood

Best Actor
George Clooney Michael Clayton; Daniel Day-Lewis There Will Be Blood; Johnny Depp Sweeney Todd . . . ; Tommy Lee JonesIn the Valley of Elah; Viggo Mortensen Eastern Promises Best Actress Cate Blanchett Elizabeth: The Golden Age; Julie Christie Away from Her; Marion Cotillard La Vie en Rose; Laura Linney The Savages; Ellen Page Juno

Best Supporting Actress Cate Blanchett
I’m Not There; Ruby Dee American Gangster; Saoirse Ronan Atonement; Amy Ryan Gone Baby Gone; Tilda Swinton Michael Clayton

Best Supporting Actor
Casey AffleckThe Assassination of Jesse James . . . ; Javier Bardem No Country for Old Men; Philip Seymour Hoffman Charlie Wilson’s War; Hal Holbrook Into the Wild; Tom Wilkinson Michael Clayton

Saoirse Ronan

Born in Ardattin, Co Carlow, on April 12, 1994 Lives there with her parents, Monica and Paul Ronan He is an actor in films such as The Devil’s Own and Veronica Guerin Her first role was in 2003, aged 9, in The Clinic, an RTE series She appears this year with Michelle Pfeiffer in I Could Never Be Your Woman, with Joely Richardson in The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey and with Bill Murray in City of Ember Saoirse means freedom

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