After appearing on stage in The Blood Knot at New Theatre Melbourne in 1970, he and fellow actor Bob Maza founded the country’s first Indigenous theatre group, Nindethana Theatre, at the Pram Factory.

One early show he appeared in and wrote music for was Jack Charles Is Up And Fighting (1972). Financed with the $350 left over from a grant for an earlier play that did not make it to the stage because of production difficulties and lack of training, it used songs, sketches and “black humour without any whitewashing”.

He played Bennelong in Michael Boddy’s play Cradle of Hercules (1974) at the Sydney Opera House, featured in Jack Davis’ hit Indigenous play No Sugar (1985) and was nominated for a Helpmann Award for the one-man show Jack Charles v The Crown (2010), which toured around the country and internationally.

The Age’s reviewer raved about his stage presence: “His voice, when it comes, is a thing of haunting beauty. Earthy and melodious, seeming to savour every word, Charles possesses a rhetorical authority that commands attention. He smiles with his whole body, his charisma appears inexhaustible.”

While so much acting on stage is ephemeral, Bastardy gave a glimpse of what a charismatic theatre actor he was.

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After early television appearances that included playing cricketer Eddie Gilbert in Behind The Legend (1974) and tracker Billy Dargin in Ben Hall (1975), his screen roles included the acclaimed film The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (1978), the mini-series Women of the Sun (1982), Tracey Moffatt’s film Bedevil (1993) and James Ricketson’s Blackfellas (1993).

His more recent screen credits reflect the rise of Indigenous storytellers, including Ivan Sen’s film Mystery Road (2013), Warwick Thornton’s film The Darkside (2013), Jon Bell’s series The Gods Of Wheat Street (2013-14) and the Ryan Griffen conceived series Cleverman (2016-17).

His ease at playing for laughs was shown in the ABC series Black Comedy (2014-2020) and Preppers (2021).

Reflecting the popularity of both artist and subject, Anh Do’s vibrant disembodied portrait of Charles won the People’s Choice Award at the Archibald Prize in 2017. However, much personality there was on canvas, there was even more in real life.

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