Jack Thompson on the set of Spyforce

Jack Thompson AM (b. 1940) is an actor and the face of the 1970s Australian film renaissance. After his mother died when he was five years old, he spent time in an orphanage in Narrabeen before being adopted by Pat, a writer, and John Thompson, a poet and ABC broadcaster. He worked as a jackeroo, served in the army and studied at the University of Queensland before deciding to pursue an acting career. Following bit parts in the television series Skippy, Matlock Police and Homicide, he gained a lead role in Spyforce. In the 1970s and 1980s he appeared in many classic films including Wake in Fright, Sunday Too Far Away, The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith, The Club, The Man from Snowy River and Breaker Morant – for which he won a best actor AFI and was named best supporting actor at Cannes. In 1972 he was the first nude Cleo centrefold, and gained further notoriety for living in a ménage a trois with two sisters for fifteen years. Since The Sum of Us in 1994, which launched the career of Russell Crowe, Thompson has acted in many American films including Last Dance, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, Star Wars Episode II – Attack of the Clones and The Good German. Locally, he has made films including Australia, Mao's Last Dancer, Mystery Road and The Great Gatsby. Outside of acting he has been a goodwill ambassador for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, and established his own foundation to support First Nations building programs in East Arnhem Land. In 2012 he received an honorary doctorate from Charles Darwin University, for his work with the Gumatj people. Now in his eighties, he continues to act in films including High Ground (2020).

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2012
© Brian McInerney