Personal Life
Born John Hadley Payne in Manly, a suburb of Sydney, Thompson was educated at Sydney Boys High School. Thompson was six years old when his mother died, leaving his father, a merchant seaman, unable to care for him and his brother, David. He was sent to a boarding school by his father and was subsequently adopted by John and Pat Thompson and changed his surname. The film reviewer, Peter Thompson, is his adopted brother.
Thompson featured in the first episode of the Australian version of Who Do You Think You Are?, which was televised on 13 January 2008 on SBS, with Thompson discovering that his great-grandfather was Captain Thomas Pain, and his great-great uncle was Alfred Lee, a prominent figure in Sydney society, who donated the journal of Joseph Banks, from Captain Cook's navigation to Australia in the 1770s, to the Mitchell Library in Sydney.
Thompson married Dorothy Hall in 1963 and the five-year marriage produced his son Patrick. He then entered into a 15-year polyamorous relationship in the 1970s and 1980s with both Leona King and her sister Bunkie. He stayed on with Leona following the birth of his second son Billy.
Thompson once owned the Hotel Gearin in Katoomba, Blue Mountains. He sold the hotel in June 2011.
Read more about this topic: Jack Thompson (actor)
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