Prominent Aboriginal actor David Gulpilil, who appeared in numerous smash-hit films including Crocodile Dundee and Australia, was jailed after beating his wife with a broomstick.

The 58-year-old was given a one-year sentence and ordered to serve a minimum of five months after being convicted of breaking wife Miriam Ashley’s arm during a drunken attack in December.

Mr Gulpilil’s lawyer Eugene Schofield told the court in Darwin, in northern Australia, that the high-profile actor had been in “a state of extreme inebriation” when he beat Ms Ashley, who was in court to support her husband.

The actor, who sat looking thin and bedraggled next to a police officer, has previously been convicted of domestic violence and has spent several weeks in jail on alcohol-related traffic offences.

Under Northern Territory law his offence carried a mandatory jail sentence.

He was also ordered to enter a seven-month alcohol rehabilitation programme as a condition of being freed early.

Mr Schofield said Mr Gulpilil, who is also an acclaimed traditional Aboriginal dancer, was embarrassed by the publicity surrounding the case and wanted to stop drinking and get back to making movies.

“He intends to attend rehab when he comes out and I understand he has a few films in the pipeline,” he said.

Mr Gulpilil shot to stardom after his first film Walkabout in 1971, but it was the 1986 hit Crocodile Dundee with Paul Hogan that really thrust him into the international spotlight.

He was awarded the Order of Australia for his services to the arts in 1987 and has since featured in widely praised films dealing with the impact of white colonisation on Aboriginal culture such as Rabbit-Proof Fence.

Yet he lived a life of poverty, which Schofield called “tragic”.

Magistrate John Lowndes described it as “a serious and a sad case”.

“The court’s view is that it is an offence that cannot be excused in any way,” said Mr Lowndes, adding that he took into consideration Mr Gulpilil’s admission of guilt.