Jackman’s lost mother

last updated 8 January 2015

Hugh Jackman has abandonment issues, said Stephen Galloway in The Hollywood Reporter. When the Australian actor was 8 years old, his mother—depressed and isolated—suddenly walked out of the family’s home in Sydney. She sent a telegram the following day, explaining that she was returning to her native England. Her disappearance utterly unnerved Jackman, who suddenly had a very busy father, four siblings, and no mom. “I was terrified because I was the first one home every day,” he says. “I used to walk home from school and wait outside. I just wouldn’t go in.” It took Jackman five years to admit to himself that his mother was gone for good. “Dad went [to England] to bring her back, but by this point she was married to someone else. When he arrived back—not three weeks later, as planned, but five days later—I just knew.” With four older siblings, Jackman struggled to win his father’s attention. He “could only come to one [school sports] game a year because he had five kids, and on Saturday he had to shop.” Jackman, 44, admits his mother’s absence left a hole in him, which is probably why he chose to be an actor. “There is a part of me that wants to please, to be all things to all people.”