Boonwurrrung Elder, Jack Charles was born at the Cummeragunja Mission on the Murray River and was a child of the Stolen Generations. He was taken from his mother and spent many of his formative years in a Melbourne boys' homes. Charles originally believed he was a Yorta Yorta man, but later discovered he belonged to the Boonwurrung people. His obituary notes that he retained ties to the Yorta Yorta clan, as well as the Dja Dja Wurrong and Woiwurrung people, and other people across south-eastern Australia. His father's and family's ties to Aboriginal nations across Victoria and Tasmania were explored in a 2021 episode of Who Do You Think You Are?
In 1971 he co-founded the first Aboriginal theatre company, Nindethana, with Bob Maza.
Charles acted in feature films, TV series and hundreds of plays including, The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith, Bedevil, Ben Hall and the 1972 play Bastardy, about his own life. Bastardy is also the title of the 2008 film about Charles' life by filmmaker Amiel Courtin-Wilson. He continued acting well into his 70s, including a role in Cleverman.
In 2021, Jack Charles participated in Who Do You Think You Are?, in the course of which he discovered that his father (whom he never knew, having been removed from his parents at the age of four months) was Hilton Hamilton Walsh.
Jack Charles died in the Royal Melbourne Hospital in September 2022, after suffering a stroke.
