Biography:

Jack Charles (5 September 1943 – 13 September 2022), also known as Uncle Jack Charles, was an Australian stage and screen actor and activist, known for his advocacy for Aboriginal people. He was involved in establishing the first Indigenous theatre in Australia, co-founding Nindethana Theatre with Bob Maza in Melbourne in 1971. His film credits include the Australian film The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (1978), among others, and more recently appeared in TV series Cleverman (2016) and Preppers (2021).

He spent many decades in and out of prison and as a heroin addict, which he ascribed largely to trauma that he experienced as a child, as one of the Stolen Generations. In later life he became a mentor for Aboriginal youth in the prison system along with musician Archie Roach, and was revered as an elder. As a gay man, Charles was considered a gay icon and role model for LGBTQI+ Indigenous youth.

Among other awards and honours, he was Victorian Senior Australian of the Year in 2015, and Male Elder of the Year in the 2022 National NAIDOC Week Awards.

Early life

Jack Charles was born on 5 September 1943 at the Royal Women’s Hospital, Carlton, in Melbourne, Victoria,^[1][2] to a Bunurong mother, Blanche,^[3] who was 15 years old at the time,^[2] and Wiradjuri father. Charles’ great-great-grandfather was a Djadjawurrung man, among the activists who resisted government policy at the Coranderrk reserve in Victoria in 1881.^[4]

Charles was a victim of the Australian Government‘s forced assimilation program which took him from his mother as an infant, and which produced what is known as the Stolen Generations.^[5] He tells how his mother sneaked out of the Royal Women’s Hospital and took him to a “blakfella camp” near Shepparton and Mooroopna (Daish’s Paddock^[6][7]), but the authorities came and took him when he was four months old.^[8]

After being moved to the Melbourne City Mission in Brunswick,^[6] Charles was raised in the Salvation Army Boys’ Home at Box Hill, suburban Melbourne, where he was the only Aboriginal child, and suffered sexual^[9] and physical abuse “far worse than anything [he] later experienced in prison”.^[5] He was not told that he was Aboriginal, and thought he was an orphan until he later discovered the existence of his still living mother.^[10] At the age of 14, he was taken into the care of a foster mother, Mrs Murphy, who treated him well, but was taken away again at the age of 17, after he dipped into his pay packet to pay for a trip to see his mother, whom he had heard was in Swan Hill (although he did not get to see her that time) and had an altercation with Mrs Murphy. He connected with some other siblings when still a teenager, and later learned more about his birth family and ancestors.^[8]

Acting career

Theatre

In 1970, Charles started his acting career in theatre.^[11] First, he was invited by members of the New Theatre in Melbourne to audition for a production of A Raisin in the Sun, a play written by the African-American playwright Lorraine Hansberry.^[3] The director of the New Theatre, Dot Thompson, cast Charles in South African playwright Athol Fugard‘s The Blood Knot,^[12] which was performed in 1970.^[13] This was followed by a non-Aboriginal role in Rod Milgate‘s A Refined Look at Existence.^[12]: 115 He later said that the New Theatre, with whom he spent seven years, was his NIDA (National Institute of Dramatic Art), as well as like family to him.^[14]

Charles was involved in establishing Indigenous theatre in Australia. In 1971, he co-founded, with Bob Maza, Nindethana (“place for a corroboree“) at The Pram Factory in Melbourne, Australia’s first Indigenous theatre group. Their first hit play, in 1972, was called Jack Charles is Up and Fighting,^[15] and included music composed by him.^[16]: 26 He is often referred to as “the grandfather of Indigenous theatre” because of this early work.^{[17][14][18][8]} He also helped to develop the National Black Theatre in Redfern, Sydney.^[19]

In August 1972, Charles played a character based on his own,^[3] a cat burglar who was struggling to get over his drug habit, in a one-act play for four actors called Bastardy, written by John Romeril. The play was performed at the Pram Factory and directed by Bruce Spence.^{[20][21][22][a]} Charles has taken pains to point out that the word is bastardy, not bastardry, Romeril having chosen the title because Charles “lived a life of buggery and bastardy in the Box Hill Boys’ Home”, and also referring to the fact that he was fatherless.^[23]

In 1974, Charles played Bennelong in the Old Tote Theatre production of Michael Boddy‘s Cradle of Hercules, which was presented at the Sydney Opera House as part of its opening season. Also in the cast was a young David Gulpilil.^[12]: 116

His stage work includes Jack Davis‘ play No Sugar for the Black Swan Theatre Company in Perth, Western Australia.^[24]

In 2010, Ilbijerri Theatre staged Charles’ one-man show called Jack Charles v The Crown at the Melbourne Festival.^[25] Bob Maza’s daughter, Rachael Maza, as artistic director of Ilbijerri, was involved in the production, and playwright John Romeril co-wrote the script. In the show, Charles talks about his life, including his removal from his family and its consequences, his addiction to and recovery from heroin, and his crimes.^[26] It also charts his attempts to navigate red tape to work in prisons as a mentor for Aboriginal inmates.^[27] Charles was nominated for a Helpmann Award for Best Male Actor in a Play for his performance in the play,^[28] which toured across Australia and internationally, including Japan, Canada, Britain and the United States, for ten years.^[26] In 2014, Ilbijerri Theatre, toured by Performing Lines, won the Helpmann Award for Best Regional Touring Production,^[29] and in the same year Ilbijerri was joint winner of a Drover Award from APACA.^[30]

In 2012, Charles performed in the Sydney Festival production I am Eora.^[31]

In August 2014, Charles performed in Ilbijerri Theatre and Belvoir Theatre‘s Coranderrk at Northcote Town Hall.^[14]

Credits:

Wikipedia