Jacqueline Ruth Weaver born 1947 is an Australian theatre, film, and television actress. She is known internationally for her performances in Animal Kingdom (2010) and Silver Linings Playbook (2012), both of which earned her nominations for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.
Weaver emerged in the 1970s as a symbol of the Australian New Wave through her work in Ozploitation films such as Stork (1971), Alvin Purple (1973), and Petersen (1974). Weaver’s other films include Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), Magic in the Moonlight (2014), The Disaster Artist (2017), Bird Box (2018), and Poms (2019). In 2005, she released her autobiography, Much Love, Jac.
Early life
Weaver was born in Sydney, Australia. Her mother, Edith (née Simpson), was a migrant from England, and her father, Arthur Weaver, was a Sydney solicitor. She attended Hornsby Girls’ High School and was Dux of her school. She won a scholarship to study sociology at university, but instead embarked upon an acting career.
Career
Weaver has been working in Australian film, stage and television since the 1960s. The turning point in her career came in 1965 just before she was about to go to university and was cast in the Australian TV series Wandjina!
Singing and stage
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In 1963, at the age of 16, Weaver mimed the role of Gretel to the great soprano, Marilyn Richardson, in an ABC production of Weber’s Hansel and Gretel, conducted by Sir Charles Mackerras. In 1964 at the Palace Theatre in Sydney, Weaver and a number of other Australian singers such as The Delltones and her then-boyfriend Bryan Davies performed a satire on the Gidget movies, in which Weaver performed as “Gadget”.
In the mid-1960s, she appeared on the Australian music show Bandstand. In one appearance, she sang a 1920s-style pastiche, the novelty song “I Love Onions”.
Contrary to popular belief, Weaver has never appeared in a soap opera. She has performed in more than 80 plays, including her stage work in Chekov’s The Cherry Orchard and Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire, in which she played Stella. Her stage abilities were recognised with a “Mo” award. In 1980 she appeared in a television production of Sumner Locke Elliot’s Water Under the Bridge.