Early life

Blake was born in Perth

Perth, Western Australia

Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia and the fourth most populous city in Australia. The Perth metropolitan area has an estimated population of almost 1,700,000....

. At the age of 18 months, she moved to England with her British parents only to return to Perth at age 11.

Blake was born deaf in one ear, a condition that was rectified by a series of operations undertaken before she was six. To overcome shyness and her hearing defect, her mother enrolled her in elocution lessons, which she continued until age 17.

After attending the John Curtin College of the Arts

John Curtin College of the Arts

John Curtin College of the Arts is a high school with student intake from the greater Fremantle area, in Western Australia. The school currently has over 1100 students attending....

 high school in Perth, she applied to, and was rejected by, Sydney's National Institute of Dramatic Art

National Institute of Dramatic Art

The National Institute of Dramatic Art is an Australian national training institute for students of theatre, film, and television, based in the Sydney suburb of Kensington. It is supported by the federal Office for the Arts, Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. NIDA is located adjacent...

 ("NIDA") at age 17. The rejection was because of her age. She was accepted into NIDA when she was 19.

Acting career

At 13, Blake was cast in a short film. After studying at NIDA, she worked on Australian television shows Home And Away

Home and Away

Home and Away is an Australian soap opera that has been produced in Sydney since July 1987 and is airing on the Seven Network since 17 January 1988. It is the second-longest-running drama and most popular soap opera on Australian television...

, Pacific Drive

Pacific Drive

Pacific Drive is an Australian television series made by Village Roadshow in association with New World International for the Nine Network between 1996 and 1997....

, and Heartbreak High

Heartbreak High

Heartbreak High is an Australian television series that ran for seven years from 1994 to 1999. The series dealt with the students of Hartley High, a tough high school in a multi-racial area of Sydney, and proved to be a more gritty and fast-paced show than many of its contemporaries...

. In 1997, she took the role of Dr Maxine Summers in the ABC

Australian Broadcasting Corporation

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly referred to as "the ABC" , is Australia's national public broadcaster...

 crime drama Wildside

Wildside (TV drama)

Wildside is an Australian police procedural television series broadcast on the ABC from 1997 to 1999.The show consisted of a one hour format that followed police interactions in inner Sydney. It starred Rachael Blake, Tony Martin, Richard Carter and Alex Dimitriades...

.

Blake's first film role was in the Australian children's movie Paws

Paws (film)

Paws is an independent 1997 Australian family film that was released on 25 September 1997 in Australia and filmed in Sydney, New South Wales....

.

She has also starred in the film Lantana

Lantana (film)

Lantana is a 2001 Australian film, directed by Ray Lawrence and featuring Anthony LaPaglia, Kerry Armstrong, Geoffrey Rush and Barbara Hershey. It is based on the play Speaking In Tongues by Andrew Bovell, which premiered at Sydney's Griffin Theatre Company...

with Anthony LaPaglia

Anthony LaPaglia

Anthony M. LaPaglia is an Australian actor. He is known for his role as FBI agent Jack Malone on the American TV series Without a Trace, for which he won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Television Series Drama and was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama...

; and in the British satirical black comedy Suburban Shootout

Suburban Shootout

Suburban Shootout is a British satirical black comedy television series produced for Five and Paramount Comedy by Feelgood Fiction in association with Oxygen. The first series aired in the UK on Five from 27 April 2006. It began airing in the United States on 22 March 2006 on Oxygen and in Germany...

between 2006–2007. In 2009, she starred in the UKTV mini-series False Witness

False Witness

False Witness is an Australian television mini-series produced by Screentime Australia for the Australian subscription television channel UK.TV...

.

She also played a main role in The Prisoner (2009 miniseries).

In 2010, she portrayed Hazel Hawke

Hazel Hawke

Hazel Hawke, AO is the former wife of Bob Hawke, Prime Minister of Australia 1983–91. They divorced after he left the prime ministership. She worked in social policy areas, and was an excellent amateur pianist and a patron of the arts...

 in the telemovie Hawke

Hawke (telemovie)

Hawke is a television film or telemovie, which was produced by The Film Company for Network Ten. The telemovie premiered on 18 July 2010 in the prime-time slot of 8.30pm.- Premise :...

.

Personal life

In 2003, she married Wildside

Wildside (TV drama)

Wildside is an Australian police procedural television series broadcast on the ABC from 1997 to 1999.The show consisted of a one hour format that followed police interactions in inner Sydney. It starred Rachael Blake, Tony Martin, Richard Carter and Alex Dimitriades...

co-star Tony Martin

Tony Martin (actor)

Tony Martin is an Australian actor. He married Rachael Blake on 21 December 2003. His son, Justin, is also an actor, with appearances in Somersault and Blue Water High to his credit....

.

External links