Rachel Ward gave up glamour for cows and a not-so-simple country life

Rachel Ward gave up glamour for cows and a not-so-simple country lifeBy Leisa Scott and Vanessa GormanAustralian Story Link copiedShareShare articleBack when Rachel Ward was a model hanging out with the 1970s New York jet set, pop art legend Andy Warhol gave her a painting of a cow. She wasn't too chuffed about the gift then, she tells Australian Story, thinking, "A cow? I don't want a picture of a bloody cow". But art and life often find a way of intertwining and that yellow and blue version of Warhol's iconic Cow series now hangs in the homestead kitchen of Rachel's beef cattle property, the place where the former model, actor and director has found the purpose she has long craved. "How clever of him," says Rachel of the famous artist, "to have known I was gonna end up as a cow hand." In fact, Rachel now manages the 350-hectare property she owns with actor husband Bryan Brown in the New South Wales Nambucca Valley and has converted its land management methods to regenerative farming. Her embrace of this farming "revolution" followed a depressive episode she suffered in the wake of the devastating Black Summer bushfires of 2019-2020 that came after years of drought. While some fences and fringing forest were lost, the farm largely escaped the fire, but the frightening experience left Rachel racked with worry about climate change and the type of planet her grandchildren would grow up in. Rachel's farm was mostly spared by the Black Summer fires, but her neighbour's property was badly burnt. (Supplied: Rachel Ward) "I felt very impotent to do anything, and I think that was why I had a bit of a crumble because I just could not see the way forward to change it, to take real responsibility about what was going on now," she says. "It's a major existential issue that we are dealing with." So, with the help of neighbours and farming mentors, Rachel has been busily restoring the farm's soil health and biodiversity by guarding against overgrazing and drastically reducing chemical use. She's "bloody loving it" and very hands-on, says Bryan, who fell for the aristocratic-born Brit when they starred in The Thorn Birds, released in 1983. That same year, Rachel was voted one of the 10 most beautiful women in the world. Rachel met her now-husband, actor Bryan Brown, on the set of The Thorn Birds miniseries in 1982. (Getty Images: ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content) Her beauty has always been an uneasy crown for Rachel, who felt her worth was reduced to how she looked. "You were really not of any value unless it was your sexuality," she says. So, it has been liberating for her, now 68, to embrace aging, eschewing perfect hair and make-up to focus on living a healthy, active life on the farm. The property is regeneratively farmed, to reduce chemicals and improve soil health. (Australian Story: Marc Smith) "I'm so past caring about what people think about one's appearance or age," Rachel says. "All I want to hear is, 'Actually, Rachel's cows are looking pretty good.'" That wasn't the internet chatter, though, after Rachel uploaded an Instagram reel late last year, committing the sin of worrying more about providing water for her cattle than how she looked. The currency of a woman's good looks was explained very clearly to Rachel from a young age by her largely absent father, Peter, a close friend of the late Princess Margaret. "What do you need an education for?" asked the man who would leave all his assets to his son, with nothing for his two daughters. "You are pretty enough to marry someone very rich." Rachel graced the cover of many magazines when she started modelling in the 1970s. (Supplied: Rachel Ward) Women were lesser, to be admired but not heard. Her actor friend and fellow model from that time, Greta Scacchi, says Rachel "was offended" by such attitudes. "Because she's bright and sparky and she's got a sort of courage that can be called ambition," Scacchi says. "She's driven to achieve." Rachel says she never felt any ownership of her beauty because that's a genetic luck of the draw, but having been born with what she calls "the pretty ticket", she swapped modelling for acting and set off for Hollywood in 1982. Rachel went to Hollywood to launch an acting career in 1982. (Supplied: Rachel Ward) She had hopes of emulating Julie Christie, an actor whose roles were "romance rather than sexuality", but by the time she got to LA, the focus for female actors was on breasts and skimpy bathing suits. "You soon find it's a very vacuous place to inhabit … it's very empty and it's very unsatisfying," Rachel says. "I was just make-up, I was fantasy." But her role in The Thorn Birds would change the course of her life, bringing her face-to-face with Bryan Brown. Rachel and Bryan in 1984, two years after meeting. (Getty Images: Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection) Rosie Brown, the eldest of their three children, says her mother tells that when Bryan showed up on set dressed as

Rachel Ward gave up glamour for cows and a not-so-simple country life

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Rachel Ward gave up glamour for cows and a not-so-simple country life

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