Rachel Ward's Real Name: Rachel Ward

Quick answer: Rachel Ward is her real name. The Contemporary Theatre, Film and Television profile on Encyclopedia.com gives her full name as Rachel Claire Ward and her birth as September 12, 1957, in Cornwell, Oxfordshire, England. TV Insider gives the same date and lists Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, as her birthplace. The middle name rests on a single qualifying source.

Real name and early life

Encyclopedia.com names her parents as Peter Alistair and Claire Leonora Ward. TV Insider calls her a "scion of an aristocratic British family" and says she left school at 16 to work as a fashion model. She appeared on magazine covers and in TV commercials before moving into acting. Encyclopedia.com says she trained for the stage with Stella Adler and Robert Modica, and later earned an M.A. in communications from the University of Technology, Sydney, in 1994.

A Library of Congress record confirms the September 12, 1957, birth date and places her birth at Cornwell Manor, near Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire.

Career highlights

Her film debut came in Night School (1981). TV Insider says that, as legend has it, Burt Reynolds spotted her photo in an advertisement in Time magazine and pursued her for the role of a doomed prostitute in Sharky's Machine (1982). That role brought a Golden Globe nomination for new star of the year, according to Encyclopedia.com. She also appeared in Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid (1982) and Against All Odds (1984).

Her best-known role was Meggie Cleary in the 1983 ABC miniseries The Thorn Birds, opposite Richard Chamberlain. It earned her another Golden Globe nomination. The New Zealand paper The Post says she met her husband, Australian actor Bryan Brown, while filming it, and Encyclopedia.com dates their marriage to 1983.

Encyclopedia.com lists a best actress award at the Tokyo International Film Festival for The Good Wife (1987) and a third Golden Globe nomination for the TV film On the Beach (2000). She told The Post she had been a film director for "the past 20-25 years." Her short film The Big House won an Australian Film Institute award. She was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in 2005.

ABC News in Australia says the 2019 bushfires near her Nambucca Valley property in New South Wales led her to regenerative farming. Her documentary Rachel's Farm follows that change on the beef cattle property she has owned for 35 years.

Name notes for searchers

Ward is her birth surname; she did not take Brown as a professional name. Searches for Rachel Claire Ward lead to the same actor and director.