Jack Charles Popular Books
Jack Charles Biography & Facts
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, to a Bunurong mother, Blanche, who was 15 years old at the time, and a Wiradjuri father, Hilton. Charles' great-great-grandfather was a Djadjawurrung man, among the activists who resisted government policy at the Coranderrk reserve in Victoria in 1881. 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. 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), but the authorities came and took him when he was four months old. After being moved to the Melbourne City Mission in Brunswick, Charles was raised in the Salvation Army Boys' Home at Box Hill, suburban Melbourne, where he was the only Aboriginal child, and suffered sexual and physical abuse "far worse than anything [he] later experienced in prison". 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. 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. Acting career Theatre In 1970, Charles started his acting career in theatre. 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. The director of the New Theatre, Dot Thompson, cast Charles in South African playwright Athol Fugard's The Blood Knot, which was performed in 1970. This was followed by a non-Aboriginal role in Rod Milgate's A Refined Look at Existence.: 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. 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, and included music composed by him.: 26 He is often referred to as "the grandfather of Indigenous theatre" because of this early work. He also helped to develop the National Black Theatre in Redfern, Sydney. In August 1972, Charles played a character based on his own, 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. 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. 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.: 116 His stage work includes Jack Davis' play No Sugar for the Black Swan Theatre Company in Perth, Western Australia. In 2010, Ilbijerri Theatre staged Charles' one-man show called Jack Charles v The Crown at the Melbourne Festival. 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. It also charts his attempts to navigate red tape to work in prisons as a mentor for Aboriginal inmates. Charles was nominated for a Helpmann Award for Best Male Actor in a Play for his performance in the play, which toured across Australia and internationally, including Japan, Canada, Britain and the United States, for ten years. In 2014, Ilbijerri Theatre, toured by Performing Lines, won the Helpmann Award for Best Regional Touring Production, and in the same year Ilbijerri was joint winner of a Drover Award from APACA. In 2012, Charles performed in the Sydney Festival production I am Eora. In August 2014, Charles performed in Ilbijerri Theatre and Belvoir Theatre's Coranderrk at Northcote Town Hall. Film and TV 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. 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. Charles was the subject of Amiel Courtin-Wilson's documentary film, Bastardy, (its title taken from John Romeril's 1972 play based on Charles' character) which followed him for seven years. The film's tagline described him as: "Addict. Homosexual. Cat burglar. Actor. Aboriginal.". The film was in the official selection for Singapore, Melbourne (MIFF), Sydney, Sheffield Doc/Fest, and others, and was nominated for numerous awards. The film won the Film Critics Circle of Australia Award for Best Documentary in 2009; Best Documentary Human Story at the 2009 ATOM Awards; and the Grand Jury Prize at the FIFO Inte.... Discover the Jack Charles popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Jack Charles books.
Best Seller Jack Charles Books of 2024
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Brothers and Wives
Christopher AndersenFeaturing unreported details and stunning revelations, the longawaited followup to the “fabulous, addictive” (Chicago SunTimes) New York Times bestseller Diana’s Boys explores the ...
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The Last Death of Jack Harbin
Terry ShamesSmall town mystery and veteran's issues collide as retired police chief Samuel Craddock investigates a murder. Right before the outbreak of the Gulf War, two eighteenyearold footba...
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The Golden Ass
ApuleiusWritten towards the end of the second century AD, The Golden Ass tells the story of the many adventures of a young man whose fascination with witchcraft leads him to be transformed...
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The Pocket Enquire Within
George ArmstrongWhat is the correct way to carve a partridge?How should leeches be applied?How can egg whites be used to repair broken china?First published in 1856, Enquire Within rapidly became ...
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THE COMPLETE SHORT STORIES OF R. L. STEVENSON
Robert Louis StevensonThis unique collection of Robert Louis Stevenson's complete short stories has been designed and formatted to the highest digital standards. Robert Louis Stevenson (1850 1894) ...
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Selected Poems
Charles-Pierre BaudelaireThe poems of Charles Baudelaire are filled with explicit and unsettling imagery, depicting with intensity every day subjects ignored by French literary conventions of his time. 'Ta...
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The Breakers
Marcia MullerNew York Times bestselling author Marcia Muller is at her pageturning best in The Breakers, as she digs into a particularly disturbing corner of San Francisco's historyone that Sha...
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Creepy Crawling
Jeffrey Melnick"Creepy crawling" was the Manson Family's practice of secretly entering someone's home and, without harming anyone, leaving only a trace of evidence that they had been there, some ...
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The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
Joseph LanzaWhen Tobe Hooper’s lowbudget slasher film, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, opened in theaters in 1974, it was met in equal measure with disgust and reverence. The filmin which a group...
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The Cloud of Unknowing and Other Works
A. SpearingContains The Cloud of Unknowing, The Mystical Theology of Saint Denis, The Book of Privy Counselling, and An Epistle on Prayer. Against a tradition of devotional writings which fo...
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Front Sight
Stephen HunterA collection of three interconnected novellas that follow each generation of the iconic Swagger familygrandfather Charles, father Earl, and fan favorite hero Bob Leefrom New York T...
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Coup in Dallas
H. P. Albarelli & Dick RussellThe CIA, Dallas, and the Hard Details of the JFK AssassinationCoup in Dallas leaves speculation and theory aside to give the hard details of who killed President John F. Kennedy an...
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Journey Into Darkness
John E. Douglas & Mark OlshakerNew York Times bestselling author of Mindhunter John Douglas reveals more unique cases from his time as head of the FBI's elite Investigative Support Unit.In the #1 New York Times ...
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Trust No One
Anthony MosawiMy name is Sara Eden, and this is all I can remember . . . There are government agents pursuing me. They think I know something they want. They will never stop. I could be a dange...
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Astounding Sea Stories
Tom McCarthyStories that will entertain, inform, and inspire.Few people would want to test their mettle in an iceencrusted boat with Ernest Shackleton, or search for the Northwest Passage with...
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Thrillville, USA
Taylor KoekkoekA raw and remarkable debut story collection concerning substance abuse, societal alienation, and doomed romance from a writer whose work has appeared in prestigious literary journa...
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The Serial Killers
Colin Wilson & Donald SeamanAs the number of serial killers worldwide has risen steadily from the emergence of Jack the Ripper in 1888 to Harold Shipman and Ivan Milat, the backpacker killer of the Australia...
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Monsters Of Death Row
Anthony Gordon Brown & Christopher Berry-DeeFrom the cells of Death Row come the chilling, truelife accounts of the most heinous, cruel and depraved killers of modern times. Meet grisly killers such as Bill Joe Benefiel, the...
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Dirty Tricks
Shane O'SullivanThe victory of Richard Nixon in the US presidential election of 1968 swung on an “October Surprise” a treasonous plot engineered by key figures in the Republican Party to keep the ...
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Island Reich
Jack GrimwoodAN UNLIKELY SPY. A FORMER KING. THE FATE OF A NATION IN THEIR HANDS.The gripping WWII thriller from the awardwinning author of Nightfall Berlin, perfect for fans of Simon Scarrow'I...
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The American West
Dee BrownRenowned storyteller Dee Brown, author of the bestselling Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, recreates the struggles of Native Americans, settlers, and ranchers in this stunning volume...
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The Race
James McGuaneThe Race: Inside the Indy 500 examines in words and pictures this highly evolved autoracing spectacle, which is hosting the 100th running in 2016. Author James McGuane has spent te...
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Open Look
Jay TrianoA thoughtful, entertaining memoir about one of Canada’s most decorated basketball stars, his love of the sport, and the rise of basketball in Canada.As a child growing up in Niagar...
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Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Jack FinneyCelebrate one of the earliest science fiction novels by rediscovering Jack Finney’s internationally acclaimed Invasion of the Body Snatcherswhich Stephen King calls a story “to be ...
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Hms Crusader
A E LangsfordDeath by fire Death by ice. These were the twin threats confronting the seamen on the North Atlantic convoys: fire from the Luftwaffe's bombs, and from the torpedoes of the lurkin...
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My Name Is Nobody
Matthew Richardson'PROOF THAT THE SPY GENRE IS FLOURISHING IN THE 21ST CENTURY' Guardian'I know for certain that there is a mole somewhere within the intelligence services . . . His codename is Nobo...
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The Big Goodbye
Sam WassonFrom the New York Times bestselling author of Fifth Avenue, Five A.M. and Fosse comes the revelatory account of the making of a modern American masterpiece Chinatown is the Holy...
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The Cases That Haunt Us
John E. DouglasDid Lizzie Borden murder her own father and stepmother? Was Jack the Ripper actually the Duke of Clarence? Who killed JonBenet Ramsey? #1 New York Times bestselling author and lege...
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Watch Him Die
Craig RobertsonNOMINATED FOR THE McILVANNEY PRIZE 2020 FOR SCOTTISH CRIME BOOK OF THE YEAR 'Truly difficult to put down’ Daily Mail 'Highconcept plot keeps the 'tecs and the ...
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The Greatest Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald - 45 Titles in One Edition
F. Scott FitzgeraldMusaicum Books presents to you this carefully created volume of "The Greatest Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald 45 Titles in One Edition". This ebook has been designed and form...
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White Nights and Other Stories
Fyodor DostoyevskyFyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky (1821 – 1881), sometimes transliterated Dostoevsky, was a Russian novelist, short story writer, and essayist. Dostoyevsky's literary works explo...
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Jack Charles
Jack CharlesStolen from his mother and placed into institutional care when he was only a few months old, Uncle Jack was raised under the government’s White Australia Policy. The loneliness and...
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The Complete Short Stories of Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis StevensonThis carefully crafted ebook: "The Complete Short Stories of Robert Louis Stevenson" is formatted for your eReader with a functional and detailed table of contents. Robert ...
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Complete Jack The Ripper
Donald RumbelowFully updated and revised, Donald Rumbelow’s classic work is the ultimate examination of the facts, theories, fictions and fascinations surrounding the greatest whodunit in history...
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The Anatomy Of Motive
John E. DouglasFrom the internationally bestselling authors of Mindhunter, a riveting exploration of the root of all crime.Every crime is a mystery story with a motive at its heart. Understand th...
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Mindhunter
Mark Olshaker & John E. DouglasDiscover the classic, behindthescenes chronicle of John E. Douglas’ twentyfiveyear career in the FBI Investigative Support Unit, where he used psychological profiling to delve into...
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Kubrick
Robert P. Kolker & Nathan AbramsThe definitive biography of the creator of 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Shining, and A Clockwork Orange, presenting the most indepth portrait yet of the groundbreaking filmmaker.The ...
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Short Stories
Fyodor DostoyevskyFyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky (1821 – 1881), sometimes transliterated Dostoevsky, was a Russian novelist, short story writer, and essayist. Dostoyevsky's literary works explo...