Best Actress and BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role for Darling Later, she played Thomas Hardy 's heroine Bathsheba Everdene in Schlesinger's Far from the Madding Crowd (1967) and the lead character, Petulia Danner, in Richard Lester 's Petulia (1968). In the 1970s, Christie starred in smaller films such as Robert Altman