Background
Brookes was born in Montclair, New Jersey, the daughter of Maria Victoire (née Zur Haar) and Frederick Jack Brookes, an investment banker.
Brookes was born in Montclair, New Jersey, the daughter of Maria Victoire (née Zur Haar) and Frederick Jack Brookes, an investment banker.
She attended a French-speaking school in New York and spoke fluent French. She chose to attend the University of Iowa, graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts.
Then she went to London on a Fulbright Scholarship to study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. During the 1960s, she spent several summers acting in the Shakespeare Festival at the Old Globe Theater in San Diego, performing in such plays as Antony and Cleopatra, A Winter"s Tale, The Merchant of Venice, A Midsummer Night"s Dream, The Merry Wives of Windsor, and Richard III. During that era, she also performed Rosalind in As You Like lieutenant at the New Mexico State University, Katherine in The Taming of the Shrew at the University of British Columbia, and Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing, at the Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Connecticut.
Jacqueline Brookes in later years was a teacher at the Circle in the Square Theatre School, as well as a life member of The Actors Studio.