Barry Humphries

At one time hailed as the strongest proponent of Dada in Australia, the multi-talented Barry Humphries has excelled as a character actor in Europe and Australia and has become one of the best loved landscape painters Down Under, but his fame rests on the Melbourne housewife he first created in connection with the Olympic Games back in 1956. Since then, Dame Edith Everage has commandeered the actor's life, blooming into an international phenomenon, a wonderful parody of celebrity and self-obsession. He delivered his first Dadaist experiments in anarchy and visual satire against the conservative background of his hometown Melbourne and moved on to the more cosmopolitan Sydney, where he played Estragon in "Waiting for Godot" (1958), the first Australian production of a Samuel Beckett play. A frequent player in London's West End during the 60s, he starred as Fagin in the 1967 revival of Lionel Bart's musical "Oliver!", featuring a young Phil Collins as the Artful Dodger. Nevertheless, he did not introduce Dame Edna to British audiences until the 1969 one-person stage production "Just a Show", which led to the short-lived BBC series "The Barry Humphries Scandals".

Humphries created Barry McKenzie, the beer-swilling Aussie abroad, for the British satirical magazine TPrivate Eye and collaborated with director Bruce Beresford on the screenplay for a live action version of the comic strip "The Adventures of Barry McKenzie" (1972), the first big commercial success generated by the film renaissance in Australia. In that picture and its sequel, "Barry McKenzie Holds His Own" (1974, which he also co-scripted), Humphries appeared as several characters, most notably as the titular character's very proper Aunt Edna. He later teamed with Beresford in different guises for "Side By Side" (1975) and "The Getting of Wisdom" (1977). He was well on his way to taking the English-speaking world by storm when he won the Society of West End Theatres (SWET) Award for "A Night with Dame Edna" (1979), but the abysmal reviews received by his alter ego on his first foray across the pond with "Housewife/Superstar" (1977) gave every indication that America was an unwilling convert to the Edna experience. Humphries summed up his negative reception in the Big Apple: "When THE NEW YORK TIMES tells you to close, you close."

Among the other characters Humphries has created are Les Patterson, a flatulent cultural attache, featured in George Miller's "Les Patterson Saves the Day" (1987, in which he also appeared as Dame Edna), and the overly optimistic Sandy Stone, a character who resurfaced as a ghost in the 1999 one-man Australian stage show "Remember You're Out". While his own creations may tend to upstage him, Humphries has proven to be an accomplished character player as demonstrated by his media tycoon Rupert Murdoch in "Selling Hitler" (1991), a five-part British black comedy sending-up the furor over the Hitler diaries hoax of 1983, his 19th Century Austrian statesman Clemens Metternich in Bernard Rose's "Immortal Beloved" (1994) and his put-upon theater director in John Duigan's "The Leading Man" (1996). Still, Dame Edna's demands on his time have been immense, as the purple-haired, Margaret Thatcher-Liberace hybrid became a fixture on TV at home and in England, as well as cropping up as a guest on the American talk-show circuit and as a host of her own NBC comedy specials in the early 90s. By decade's end, the rave reviews received in San Francisco for Edna's 1998 stage return gave every indication that the country had finally caught up to the Dame and that New York was ready for her assault on the Great White Way in "Dame Edna: The Royal Tour" (1999).

• Also Credited As:
  Barry Mackenzie, Dame Edna Everage, Lance Boyle, Sandy Stone, Sir Les Patterson
• Born:
  February 17, 1934 in Melbourne, Australia
• Job Titles:
  Actor, Comedian, Author, Novelist, Painter, Songwriter

Family

• Daughter: Emily Humphries. lives in Australia
• Daughter: Tessa Humphries.
• Father-in-law: Stephen Spender.
• Mother: Gladys Humphries. Humphries has described his relationship with his mother as uncomfortable ; others have characterized her as aloof
• Son: Oscar Humphries.

Significant Others

• Wife: Diane Millstead. third wife; divorced
• Wife: Lizzie Spender. fourth wife; daughter of British poet Sir Stephen Spender
• Wife: Rosalind Tong. second wife; divorced
• Companion: . has been married four times and divorced three times

Education

• University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia

Milestones

• 1956 Created the character of Mrs. Everage, a Melbourne housewife who would evolve into the celebrated Dame Edna, for a sketch in connection with Melbourne s Olympic Games
• 1958 Created the character of Sandy Stone, a kind of eustralian Beckett figure, as a scathing satire of suburban boredom
• 1959 Sailed for Venice, Italy
• 1967 Acted in Stanley Donen s Bedazzled , starring the team of Peter Cook and Dudley Moore
• 1967 Starred as Fagin in the Piccadilly Theatre s revival of Lional Bart s musical Oliver! with Phil Collins as the Artful Dodger
• 1969 Introduced Mrs. Everage to the British stage in his one-person Just a Show , which led to a short-lived BBC series, The Barry Humphries Scandals
• 1972 Teamed with director Bruce Beresford to write screenplay for The Adventures of Barry McKenzie , introducing the beer-swilling, Australian lout to screen audiences; played three charactes including the very proper Aunt Edna to Barry Crocker s McKenzie
• 1974 Reprised Dame Edna in Beresford s Barry McKenzie Holds His Own , again co-scripting with the director; also appeared as three additional characters
• 1975 Acted in third film with Beresford, Side By Side
• 1977 Brought Dame Edna to New York for the unmitigated disaster of Housewife/Superstar
• 1977 Last film (to date) with Beresford, The Getting of Wisdom , playing Reverend Strachey
• 1979 Won the Society of West End Theatres Award for his A Night With Dame Edna
• 1982 Awarded the Order of Australia
• 1984 Part of the excellent cast of Doctor Fischer of Geneva (BBC-2), including James Mason, Alan Bates and Cyril Cusack, among others; aired on PBS the following year
• 1987 Appeared as Dame Edna in Phillipe Mora s The Marsupials: The Howling III
• 1987 Co-scripted George Miller s Les Patterson Saves the World , playing both Les Patterson and Dame Edna Everage
• 1991 Portrayed Rupert Murdoch in Selling Hitler , a five-part British black comedy detailing the great Hitler diaries hoax of 1983
• 1991 Wrote and appeared in NBC comedy special, Dame Edna s Hollywood (followed by 1992 and 1993 NBC specials of the same name); also wrote lyrics for Dame Edna s Nicenesss Theme
• 1994 Played Clemens Metternich in Bernard Rose s Immortal Beloved , starring Gary Oldman as Beethoven
• 1996 Portrayed theater director Humphrey Beal in John Duigan s The Leading Man
• 1996 Reteamed with Mora for Pterodactyl Women from Beverly Hills
• 1997 Contributed the voice of Kangaroo to animated Napoleon
• 1997 Made cameo appearance in Stefan Elliott s Welcome to Woop Woop
• 1998 Appeared in Spice World
• 1998 Brought Dame Edna to the US stage for the first time since 1977, receiving rave notices from the San Francisco press like a marvel of comic endurance and savagely entertaining ; city proclaimed November 26 as Dame Edna Day
• 1998 Performed Edna, the Spectacle at London s Theatre Royal Haymarket
• 1999 Tackled the Great White Way in Dame Edna: The Royal Tour
• 1999 Appeared for Australian audiences sans Edna regalia in Remember You re Out , playing different characters
• 2001 Contributed humor column to Vanity Fair
• 2001 Had recurring role of Claire Otoms on the Fox comedy Ally McBeal
• Appeared in numerous West End (London) theatrical productions during the 1960s
• Created the comic strip character of Barry McKenzie in British satirical magazine Private Eye
• Had his first Dada exhibition while a university student
• Joined Sydney s Philip Street Theatre, where he appeared as Estragon in Waiting for Godot , the first Australian production of a Samuel Beckett play