The two-acts story in the life of Australian actor, Jon Blake

Australian actor Jon Blake will be laid to rest on Tuesday, June 7, 2011, at the Greenway Chapel & Memorial Gardens, located at 460 Avoca Drive, Green Point, NSW, Australia.

A ceremony will commence at 12:00 p.m. as the late actor’s family and friends will gather to pay tribute to his success and struggles before he succumbed to death due to pneumonia on May 29, 2011. He was 52.

If the life of Jon Blake was a story, then the Australian actor once dubbed as ‘the next Mel Gibson’ was a two-act piece in the literary world, says The Sydney Morning Herald.

And the once-promising star of The Lighthorsemen - who was forced to 27 years in silence after the horrible road accident - had lived his two-act piece to the best way he could according to the people who had helped him lived through pain and struggle in the latter years of his life.

The Sydney Morning Herald described the two-part story of Jon Blake: first, a promising acting career and second, the silent life filled ‘with mysterious blessings’.

For IBTimes, the first act of his life he had lived through with family and friends; while the second act of his life he lived not only with his family and some friends as his anchors but also, equally important, with the attention provided by his personal medical carers.

In the first act, Blake had led a promising career in acting and was believed to be headed to Hollywood after he had made a name for himself in Australia.

His friends and fellow actors had nothing but good words for the late actor.

“We got on very well... we used to sit around and shoot the breeze, and he was very popular with the ladies,” fellow Australian actor, Gary Sweet, was quoted as saying by IBTimes in a separate report.

He had appeared on a number of television programs and films in Australia before his name had made it to the international scene.

Read IBTimes Full Report
Jon Blake’s deterioration ‘devastating’, says ‘Lighthorsemen’ casts

In the second act, John Blake as noted by The Sydney Morning Herald “had deployed more mysterious blessings: an inner spirit whose expression was limited by the few tools of his trade he had left”.

By these tools, the news website meant other faculties that the actor had used as his arms to fight the battle that he had to live with until his last breath.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Blake used as weapons are his face and his body.
He may have been silenced and disabled by the horrible accident but it did not stop him to fight his battle.

He had found his new language: thumbs-down for ‘no’; pressed lips firmly together might indicate a protest and firm blink confirmed understanding.

These new languages was mustered not only by the ailing actor but as well as his medical caregiver, Leanne Clarke.

Clarke was hired by the Blake family in the mid-1990s. She was then 25 and she had stayed to care for the quadriplegic and brain-damaged actor. Clarke was the extension of Blake’s as he had remained bedridden through the years.

"At first I was shocked," Clarke said, according to The Sydney Morning Herald. "He wasn't the man I had seen on the screen. I had to separate the two people, otherwise my heart would break. That was like an instant shock but that went straight away as well. Obviously, he's had a car accident, he's a quadriplegic, he's got a brain injury, he's no longer the man I saw on the screen."

Blake and Clarke had fought the struggle together using their new-found means of communication.

"It was very simple communication. He would give me a definite thumbs-up and a definite thumbs-down and a definite blink. [It was] a definite thumbs-up, like 'bewdy mate', definite thumbs-up with a fist. When he was very fatigued [he] may not give the blinking signal so much but if he was fresh and feeling good about himself . . . if I asked him something and if I wasn't sure of his answer, I'd say, 'Jon, I need a definite blink,' and he'd give it to me," Clarke was quoted as saying by the Sydney Morning Herald.

Aside from Clarke, Blake was also under the care of his mother, Mascot, until her death in 2007. His son, Dustin had fought and won legal battles for Jon compensating his medical care and the untimely end of his acting career.

Find out more details about the funeral services prepared by Jon Blake’s family and friends here and share it with your friends who have truly admired the once-very-promising Australian actor.

Also READ:
Aussie actor, Jon Blake dies at 52 after long years in bed

If you want to see the actor during his younger years, active and full of life, click the video of a news feature from Channel Ten, taking a look at the life of the Australian actor once dubbed as the 'next Mel Gibson.