Jack was also for a long time a heroin addict and a criminal. jack charles, bastardy.

Credit: Eddie Jim “I was the first one he came across when he scuttled out of his cubby hole in the night,” recalls Jack, grimly. One of the nation’s most respected and enduring actors, Uncle Jack Charles is a member of Australia’s stolen generation. The 72-year-old was with two artists visiting from Turkey when they tried to catch a taxi from outside Flinders Street Station about 3pm on Wednesday. A member of the Stolen Generation, Jack has spent his life in between acting gigs, caught in the addiction/crime/doing time cycle. Uncle Jack Charles is a national treasure, an award-winning actor, Aboriginal elder and activist. But he's overcome the pain of his past and is now enjoying a renaissance, new found fame and purpose. As you'll see his life had really tough beginnings. Aboriginal elder and renowned actor Jack Charles has again been refused a cab in Melbourne because of what he calls systemic racial discrimination against Indigenous Australians by taxi drivers. Charles knew none of that in 1971 when he co-founded the first indigenous theatre group in the country, Nindethana, in which he wanted Aboriginal actors to play ordinary people. Menu Uncle Jack was a key figure in Indigenous theatre in the 1970s, and his recent screen roles include Cleverman and Mystery Road (the film). Uncle Jack Charles is a national treasure. As you'll see his life had really tough beginnings. An elder and self-made feather-foot, Uncle Jack is respected by the arts community, Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians alike. jack charles occupies a number of conflicting identities: actor, homeless person, heroin addict, homosexual, ex-con, activist and member of the stolen generation. Jack Charles (b. Uncle Jack Charles is an Australian legend: survivor of the Stolen Generation, Indigenous elder, actor, musician, activist and former heroin addict and cat burglar. Charles is a member of the Stolen Generation and an Aboriginal elder. Removed from his mother as a baby and raised in a Salvation Army boys’ home, Jack knew nothing of his Indigenous heritage as a child.

He is an actor, known for Pan (2015), Dimboola: The Stage Play (1973) and Woodley (2012). Can you help Uncle Jack and the team at The Malpa Project to close the health gap for Aboriginal kids? 1943), actor, Indigenous elder and activist, was born at the Cummeragunja Mission on the Murray River and taken from his mother when he was less than twelve months old.

Jack was also for a long time a heroin addict and a criminal. But the title he’s most proud to claim is that of Aboriginal Elder. About Jack.