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Barry Humphries

Barry Humphries

Acting · Creator

Born February 17, 1934, Camberwell, Melbourne, Australia

John Barry Humphries, AO, CBE (17 February 1934 - 22 April 2023) was an Australian comedian, satirist, dadaist, artist, author and character actor, perhaps best known for his on-stage and television alter egos Dame Edna Everage, a Melbourne housewife and "gigastar", and Sir Les Patterson, Australia's foul-mouthed cultural attaché to the Court of St. James's. He was a film producer and script writer, a star of London's West End musical theatre, an award-winning writer and an accomplished landscape painter. For his delivery of dadaist and absurdist humour to millions, biographer Anne Pender described Humphries in 2010 as not only the most significant theatrical figure of our time … [but] the most significant comedian to emerge since Charlie Chaplin. Humphries' characters, especially Dame Edna Everage, have brought him international renown, and he had appeared in numerous films, stage productions and television shows. Originally conceived as a dowdy Moonee Ponds housewife who caricatured Australian suburban complacency and insularity, Edna had evolved over four decades to become a satire of stardom, the gaudily dressed, acid-tongued, egomaniacal, internationally feted Housewife Gigastar, Dame Edna Everage. Humphries' other major satirical character creation was the archetypal Australian bloke Barry McKenzie, who originated as the hero of a comic strip about Australians in London (with drawings by Nicholas Garland) which was first published in Private Eye magazine. The stories about "Bazza" (Humphries' nickname, as well as an Australian term of endearment for the name Barry) gave wide circulation to Australian slang, particularly jokes about drinking and its consequences (much of which was invented by Humphries), and the character went on to feature in two Australian films, in which he was portrayed by Barry Crocker. Humphries' other satirical characters include the "priapic and inebriated cultural attaché" Sir Les Patterson, who has "continued to bring worldwide discredit upon Australian arts and culture, while contributing as much to the Australian vernacular as he has borrowed from it", gentle, grandfatherly "returned gentleman" Sandy Stone, iconoclastic 1960s underground film-maker Martin Agrippa, Paddington socialist academic Neil Singleton, sleazy trade union official Lance Boyle, high-pressure art salesman Morrie O'Connor and failed tycoon Owen Steele. Humphries died following complications from hip surgery at St Vincent's Hospital in Sydney on 22 April 2023.

Filmography

Appearances as themselves (27)
  • 2023Barry Humphries - A Life of Laughs — Self (Archive)
  • 2023Barry Humphries at the BBC — Self (archive material) / Dame Edna Everage / Sir Les Patterson
  • 2023Barry Humphries: The Last Laugh — Self
  • 2016Peter Cook and Dudley Moore: The Missing Sketches — Self
  • 2015Michael McIntyre's Big Christmas Show — Self
  • Brilliant Creatures — Self
  • 2014The Last Impresario — Self
  • 2009Making Mary and Max — Self
  • I'd Do Anything — Himself - Judge
  • 2008Not Quite Hollywood — Self
  • Q&A — Self - Panellist
  • 2008We Are Most Amused — Self
  • Who Do You Think You Are? — Self
  • The Graham Norton Show — Self
  • 2006It Started with Swap Shop — Self
  • 2006Telling Schoolgirl Tales: The Making of 'The Getting of Wisdom’ — Self
  • 2004Remember the Secret Policeman's Ball? — Self - Edna Everage
  • Micallef Tonight — Self
  • QI — Self, Self - Panellist (archive footage)
  • The Osbournes — Self
  • Hollywood Squares — Self - Panelist
  • The View — Self
  • 1995Some Interesting Facts About Peter Cook — Self
  • Pebble Mill — Self
  • 1982The Secret Policeman's Other Ball — Self - Various Roles
  • Wogan — Self
  • The South Bank Show — Self
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