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.
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]
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 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 1972, Charles auditioned for the role of the Australian Indigenous title character in the television show Boney but was declined. The job went to New Zealand-born white actor James Laurenson, who wore brown face make-up for the role.[32] It was partly due to this disappointment, that the white establishment was not yet ready to accept Aboriginal actors in major roles, that led to his co-founding of Nindethana and the development of black theatre for Indigenous people.[19]
He played Chief Great Little Panther in Joe Wright's 2015 fantasy film Pan.[36]
Charles appeared in several episodes of the sketch comedy show, Black Comedy, between 2014 and 2020, his final role being that of a judge.[37]
In 2016, Charles appeared in two episodes of the television horror drama series Wolf Creek. Also in 2016, he appeared in the television drama series Cleverman. Charles appeared in the 2021 television comedy series Preppers.[10]
For a large part of his life, Charles was a petty thief and heroin addict. He was jailed 22 times,[39] saying later that he gave up heroin at the age of 60, and had not been in jail since 2009. He saw his robberies as "rent collection" for stolen Aboriginal land, and attributes his and many other Aboriginal people's substance abuse to the trauma of dispossession and being removed from his family.[5] He gave up heroin after two years on methadone as part of the Marumali prison program, which was delivered by Aunty Lorraine Peeters and her daughter Shaan. He wanted to become completely clean by the end of a documentary film that was being made about him (Bastardy), which took longer than expected because of being on methadone for two years, eventually being released in 2008.[26]
Other activities and later life
He developed an interest in pottery in prison in Castlemaine in the 1970s, and after developing his skills he taught other prisoners in what was a successful program. He enjoyed creating works through his lifetime, finding the practice meditative.[40]
Charles received a Christian education from the Salvation Army, and continued to observe Christian values into his 70s, when he told Geraldine Doogue in 2017:
I've employed my Aboriginality as my religion now ... instead of God, I've found that the Godhead is within me ... I'm solely directed towards making an accommodation between Black and White.[39]
He told Benjamin Law in 2020 that his experience with Christianity and the Salvos had "proper buggered me up" because of the abuse he suffered, but he had never wanted to sue the Salvation Army, as they do much good. He liked to believe that Bundjil, the great wedge-tailed eagle, the ancestor spirit and creator of the Kulin land and its people, that had kept him alive through his darkest and riskiest moments in his life. He said that he had technically been dead medically before, and had also attempted suicide once.[19]
In later life he became somewhat of a role model for young Indigenous men fighting institutionalised racism, and lacking a connection to culture,[14] and, after being eventually allowed into the prison system, mentored Aboriginal prison inmates in Victorian prisons and youth detention centres.[41] He also advocated for more Indigenous community centres in regional centres such as Horsham or Shepparton, for young people to gather in "a sanctuary for Aboriginal people where the community can get together and talk about our personal issues with each other...".[42] He said that he had petitioned local councils and later the Victorian Minister for Aboriginal Affairs to create a community centre for people after their release from prison, but had not been listened to. However he found it gratifying that in later life young Indigenous men would come up to him in the street and excitedly tell him that they had come off heroin and methadone.[26] He lobbied the Victorian Government to expunge criminal records after a period time, which brought about a change in the law enabling him to work in the state's prisons. The story of his efforts was told in the show Jack Charles v The Crown (2010).[3]
As a gay man, Charles was an icon and role model for young LGBTQI people.[2][43] In his work with youth in youth detention centres and in speaking about other young queer Indigenous people, he encouraged everyone to be true to themselves.[42]
In October 2016, shortly after being named Victorian Senior Australian of the Year, he was refused a taxi unless he paid the fare in advance.[41] This was not the first time he had been met with this type of refusal, which he put down to racism, as the taxi driver had been prepared to take his [white] friend in the front seat until he saw Charles getting in the back. The incident made headlines in Australia[44] When he had been refused twice in three days in 2015, it was reported in the international press[45][46] as well as in Australia.[47]
Jack Charles and Archie Roach at "A Night with Uncle Jack", 2019
In 2017, Charles gave a talk about his passion for prison mentoring at TEDx in Sydney, and his work with Uncle Archie Roach at the Archie Roach Foundation, followed by a performance of Roach's song "We Won't Cry" by the two of them.[41] The two men worked in prisons mentoring Aboriginal prisoners through Roach's foundation.[27]
In 2019, Charles embarked on a speaking tour in a series of events called A Night with Jack Charles, in which he talked about his life as a gay Indigenous man,[42] describing it later as "the story of a reformed and rehabilitated old coot that [the audience] feel they know so well. They've seen me at my worst, read about me at my worst, and now they see me at my best."[26]
Charles' memoir, authored by Namila Benson, Jack Charles: Born-Again Blakfella,[48] was published on 18 August 2020 by Penguin.[49] The memoir was shortlisted by the Australian Book Industry Awards for the 2020 Biography Book of the Year.[50]
In later life, Charles was often referred to as Uncle Jack or Uncle Jack Charles, a mark of respect that often goes with the status of an Aboriginal Australian elder.[51][5][52] He is remembered as "the grandfather of Indigenous theatre" because of this early work.[17]
Charles died from a stroke on 13 September 2022 at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, Parkville, eight days after his 79th birthday, and was given a farewell by his family with a smoking ceremony. His death was widely reported in the Australian[1][51][10][2][53][54] and international press,[55][56] with prime minister of Australia Anthony Albanese, musician and comic Adam Briggs, actor Meyne Wyatt, and Aboriginal senator Lidia Thorpe tweeting their respects,[54] and Albanese giving an oral tribute, saying that he left a "joyous legacy" and that Australia had "lost a legend of Australian theatre, film and creative arts".[51][57]
There was a state memorial for Charles, provided by the Victorian government at Hamer Hall in Melbourne, held on 18 October 2022.[58] It was live-streamed into prisons, remand centres and youth justice centres across Victoria.[59] Hundreds of mourners attended, and crowds gathered outside. Many speakers described Charles' legacy as giving back to the community, after enduring an extraordinarily hard life. Premier Daniel Andrews was unable to attend owing to the flood emergency, with Acting Aboriginal Affairs Minister Colin Brooks addressing the funeral instead. Others to address the funeral included theatre director Rachael Maza and film director Amiel Courtin-Wilson, both friends of Charles. There were stage performances inside and dancers outside.[58]
Charles' five times great-grandfather was Mannalargenna, who was a highly respected Aboriginal Tasmanian elder and leader, acting as emissary to surrounding clans in Tasmania.[2][6] His four times great-grandmother, Woretemoeteyenner (1797–1847), was a strong Aboriginal Tasmanian woman who stood up to the sealers who decimated the population of seals that they relied on for food. His grandmother, Annie Johnson, was an important person in the history of the Murray River region of Victoria. She was known for using her horse and dray for taking food to families when flu epidemics hit the local Aboriginal communities.[8]
Charles met his sisters, Esmae and Eva Jo Charles, as a teenager, when he was living with his foster mother, and they visited him in prison in the 1980s. They managed to find another sister, Christine Zenip Charles, whose foster mother was one of the few who let her keep her Aboriginal name on her birth certificate. He met his mother in Swan Hill when he was 19. By August 2021, Esmae and Eva Jo had died, and there were six siblings still missing.[8]
He only found out who his father was in 2021, when participating in an episode of the SBS Television program Who Do You Think You Are? Hilton Hamilton Walsh was a Wiradjuri man, also known as an Indigenous mentor.[6]
Charles had a relationship with Jack Huston, a "De La Salle College boy", whom he met at the New Theatre in the 1970s, for five years.[26] He credits Jack, who also helped him and Maza and John Smythe establish Nindethana, with helping him to develop an appreciation for ballet, opera and musicals. However, Charles said later:[8]
Our relationship was doomed because I never knew what love was. I'd never been held as a child and it felt strange to be held by a man. Shortly after, I got into drugs. I see Jack occasionally and always regret that it didn't work out.
Since that early relationship, he chose to remain single (in his words "a loner").[8]
^Northover, Kylie (11 July 2017). "Lunch with Jack Charles". The Sydney Morning Herald. Archived from the original on 13 September 2022. Retrieved 13 September 2022.
^Australian Book Industry Awards (28 April 2020). "Australian Book Industry Awards". www.penguin.com.au/. Archived from the original on 2 March 2021. Retrieved 13 March 2021.
^"Jack Charles, b. 1943". National Portrait Gallery people. 22 August 2022. Archived from the original on 13 September 2022. Retrieved 13 September 2022.
^"Jack Charles, 2011". National Portrait Gallery collection. 22 August 2022. Archived from the original on 13 September 2022. Retrieved 13 September 2022.
