Barry Humphries was natural inside Melbourne. When education at Melbourne Grammar School and the University of Melbourne he joined the Melbourne Theatre Group, and created the character of Edna Everage within 1956. In the early sixties he moved to London and appeared in many West End productions. He 1st brought Mrs. Everage to the British stage around 1969 for his a single-one-person indicate Simply the Indicate.

Humphries' characters, especially Edna Everage, have brought him international fame, & he has appeared inside many films, stage productions & television program. His Barry McKenzie comic strips about Australians around London appeared in Private Eye magazine with drawings by Nicholas Garland. A stories all about "Bazza" (likewise Humphries' nickname) gave wide circulation to Australian slang, particularly jokes about sucking down & its symptoms, great deal of it invented by Humphries. He was besides a voice of Bruce a Shark in the 2003 Pixar movie Finding Nemo.

Humphries has been married 4 days; his quaternary married woman Lizzie Spender is the daughter of British poet Sir Stephen Spender. He has ii sons & 2 girl from either his third & quaternary marriages, to Diane Millstead & Lizzie Spender severally.

Early life

Barry Humphries was natural inside Kew, Melbourne. His father was the easily-to-well-heeled construction manager & Barry grew higher within the "clean, tasteful and modern home" in Camberwell, then one of Melbourne’s recently ‘garden suburbs’. His early house life placed a pattern for his eventual stage career -- Barry's parents bought him all about he wanted, however his father particularly spent little instance using him, thus he spent hours swimming dress-ups in the back garden.

"Disguising myself as different characters and I had a whole box of dressing up clothes ... Red Indian, sailor suit, Chinese costume and I was very spoiled in that way ... I also found that entertaining people gave me a great feeling of release, making people laugh was a very good way of befriending them. People couldn't hit you could they if they were laughing."

His parents nicknamed him 'Sunny Sam', & his early childhood was happy & uneventful, however within his teens Barry began to rebel against a strictures of conventional suburban life by becoming 'artistic' – tremendously to the dismay of his parents world health organization, despite their richness, distrusted "art". The key event took place once he was nine -- his mother gave whole his books to the Salvation Army, cheerfully explaining: "But you've read them, Barry."

Humphries responded by becoming the voracious reader, the collector of uncommon books, the painter, the theatre fan & the surrealist. Dressing higher inside the blacken cloak, melanize felt hat & mascara'500 eyes, he invented his number one sustained character, "Dr Aaron Azimuth", dandy and Dadaist.

Enlightened at Camberwell Grammar School, he has been awarded his place in the Gallery of Achievement there. His father’s building business prospered, & Barry was sent to Melbourne Grammar School, where he spurned sport, scorned math, shirked plebe "on the basis of conscientious objection" & matriculated by owning brilliant final result around English & Art.

He spent 2 years at Melbourne University, where he exposed law, philosophy and fine arts. In the period of this period he became Australia’s leading exponent of the deconstructive & absurd artistic movement, Dada. A Dadaist pranks & performances he mounted around Melbourne were experiments within lawlessness & ocular caustic remark which stand be a share of Australian folklore. 1 renowned exhibit entitled "Pus In Boots" consisted of the pair of Wellington boots filled with custard.

He was besides legendary for his provocative public pranks. 1 notorious case required Humphries dressing as the Frenchman, by owning an confederate dressed as a blind individual; a confederate would board a tram, followed shortly fallowing by Humprhries. At a appropriate juncture, Humphries would inflict his way past a "blind" human, yelling "Get out of my way, you disgusting blind person", kicking him brutally within the shins then jumping off the tram & making his escape in a wait car.

An possibly extra extreme case was his ill-famed "sick bag" prank. This taking part carrying the tin of condensed soup onto an aircraft, which he would so sneakily empty into an air-air sickness bag. At a appropriate point in a flight, he would pretend to vomit loudly & violently into the bag. So, to a horror of rider & crew, he would proceed to eat the contents. Of these April Fools day, Humphries placed the roasted dinner & glass of champagne inside an inner-city bin. Late in a morning, after there were numerous business people queuing at the nearby building, Humphries approached the class action as a colly, disheveled human. He walked to a bin, opened a lid & proceeded to lift the roast & swallow from either it. Great deal to the astonishment of watchers-by, he observed the suitable seating room & began to eat it.

Such stunts were the early manifestations of a womb-to-tomb interest in the bizarre, discomfiting & revolutionist.

He experienced written & performed songs & sketches inside university review, therefore fallowing allowing university he joined a fresh formed Melbourne Theatre Company. It was at this point that he created the 1st incarnation of what became his best known character, Edna Everage. A foremost stage sketch featuring Mrs Norm Everage, known as "Olympic Hostess", premiered at Melbourne University's Union Theatre on December 12, 1955. Within his award-winning autobiography Additional Please (1992) Humphries relates that he created the character similar to Ednthe inside the back of a bus patch touring united states Victoria in Twelfth Night with a MTC at the age of twenty. A dowdy Moonee Ponds housewife, originally created as a caricature of Australian suburban self-complacency & detachment, has evolved concluded quaternion decades to be a sarcasm of stardom, the tawdrily dressed, acid-tongued, egomaniacal, internationally feted Housewife Gigastar, Dame Edna Everage.

Humphries' more satiric characters include a legendary comic strip hero, nephew of Dame Edna (& primogenitor of Crocodile Dundee) Barry McKenzie; 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 '60s 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 big businessman Owen Steele.

Humphries so moved to Sydney & joined Sydney's celebrated Philip Street Revue Theatre, Australia's leading venue for revue & satiric comedy. When an extended year within review, he appeared when Estragon in Waiting for Godot, Australia's first ever production of the Samuel Beckett play.

London and the 1960s

Withinside 1959 Humphries, nowadays in his early twenties, sailed to Venice and then settled in London where he lived and worked throughout a Sixties. He became friends using leading members of the British comedy scene including Dudley Moore, Peter Cook, Alan Bennett, Jonathan Miller, Spike Milligan, Dick Bentley, Willie Rushton and fellow Aussie expatriate comedian-actor John Bluthal. Humphries performed at Cook's comedy venue The Establishment Club, where he as well became friends sustaining & was photographed by leading lensman Lewis Morley, whose studio was located above a club. He contributed to the satiric magazine Private Eye, of which Cook was publisher, his most illustrious function existence a famous cartoon strip The Wonderful World of Barry McKenzie. A ribald cartoon caustic remark of the worst aspects of Australians overseas was written by Humphries & drawn by New Zealand born cartoonist Nicholas Garland. A book version of the comic strip, published in the late' 60s, was for a few instance prohibited around Australia.

Humphries appeared within many West Prevent stage productions including a musical comedy Oliver! and Maggie May, by Lionel Bart, & stage and radio productions by his friend Spike Milligan, particularly The Bed Sitting Room.

Humphries' number one major break on the British stage come whenever he was cast in the role of the funeral undertaker Mr Sowerberry for the original 1960 London stage production of Oliver! He recorded Sowerberry's feature number "That's Your Funeral" for the original Londin cast soundtrack album (freed on Deram) and reprised a role while a production moved to Broadway around 1963, where it became a number 1 London stage musical theater to exist as transplanted to Broadway & receive a equivalent critical & audience reception it experienced received in Britain. Around 1967 he starred when Fagin in the Piccadilly Theatre's revival of Oliver! which featured a immature Phil Collins as The Artful Dodger. Around 1997 Barry reprised a role of Faginside in Cameron Mackintosh's award winning revival at the London Palladium.

Around 1967 his friendly relationship using Cook & Moore led to his foremost film role, the cameo when "Envy" in the hit film Bedazzled starring Cook and Moore by using Eleanor Bron, and directed by Stanley Donen. A charted season he appeared in The Bliss Of Mrs Blossom with Shirley MacLaine.

In the late '60s Humphries contributed to BBC-TV's popular The Late Indicate (which likewise featured Oz magazine editor Richard Neville) but Humphries detected his confessedly calling using his a single-one-person satiric stage review, where he performed when Edna Everage & more character creations including Les Patterson & Sandy Stone. He gained considerable ill fame by using his 1st of these-human review Just A Show at London's Fortune Theatre in 1969. It polarized British critics however was successful plenty to lead to the short-fugacious BBC television series The Barry Humphries Scandals, one of the precursors to the far-famed Monty Python series.

1970s

Inside 1970 Barry returned to Australia, in which Edna Everage processed her picture debut in John B. Murray's The Naked Bunyip. Inside 1971-72 he team sustaining producer Philip Adams and writer-director Bruce Beresford to create the film version of the Barry McKenzie cartoons. The Adventures of Barry MacKenzie starred singer Barry Crocker in a title role & featured Humphries -- world health organization co-wrote the script by using Beresford -- swimming leash different area. It was filmed inside England and Australia with an all-star cast including Spike Milligan, Peter Cook, Dennis Price, Dick Bentley, Willie Rushton, Julie Covington, Clive James and broadcaster Joan Bakewell. Prefer many more films of the instance which use at times since been categorized when belonging to the Ocker genre of Australian film, it was almost nem con panned by Australian film critics, however became the brobdingnagian hit sustaining audiences. within point of fact, a film became a virtually all successful locally-mass produced feature ever freed in Australia as much as that instance, paving a way for the profits of subsequent locally manufactured feature rather Alvin Purple and Picnic at Hanging Rock.

Although his career was efflorescence, throughout his visit inside London Humphries got get progressively contingent alcohol & per late Sixties his friends & personal began to fear that his addiction can prices him his career & possibly even his life. It was without doubt one of the independent reasons for the failure of his number 1 marriage, & his swallowing was too a conducive factor to the collapse of his 2nd. His sucking down reached crisis point when you took the visit range in the early Seventies -- his parents eventually got him admitted to the personal hospital to 'dry out' when, after the particularly heavily binge, he was noticed unconscious mind inside the gutter. Since so he has abstained from either either alcohol all & was one of a numerous friends world health organization tried in vain to help Peter Cook, world health organization sooner or later died from alcohol-related unwellness. It has been speculated that a excesses of a perpetually intoxicated Sir Les Patterson come to a select few extent informed by his have battles sustaining the bottle.

Film roles

Since a late '60s Humphries has appeared around many films, mostly within supporting or even cameo roles. His credits include a UK sex comedy ''Percy's Progress'' (1974), David Baker's The Great McCarthy and Bruce Beresford's Barry MacKenzie Holds his Own (1974) -- in which Edna was made a Dame by then Australian PM Gough Whitlam.

More film credits inlclude Side By Side (1975) and The Getting Of Widsom (1977). the equivalent season, he experienced a cameo when Edna in the Robert Stigwood musical film ''Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (which became infamous as one of the biggest film flops of the decade), followed in 1981 by a part in Shock Treatment, the unsuccessful sequel to The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

He wwhen other successful by having his featured role as Richard Deane within Dr Fischer of Geneva (1985); this was followed by The Howling III (1987), a cameo when Rupert Murdoch in the miniseries Selling Hitler'' (1991) with Alexei Sayle, a 3-role cameo around Phillipe Mora's horror satire Pterodactyl Woman From Beverly Hills (1994), the role of Count Metternich inside Immortal Beloved (1994), when well as roles in The Leading Man (1996), the Spice Girls' film Spice World, the Australian feature Welcome To Woop Woop (1997) and last Nicholas Nickelby (2002).

Barry has as well featured around various roles inside comedy performance films including ''The Secret Policeman's' Other Ball (1982) and A Night of Comic Relief 2 (1989). Around 1987 he starred when Les Patterson within one of his have uncommon flops, a black Les Patterson Saves the World, directed by George Miller of Mad Max'' fame and co-written by Humphries by owning his third married woman, Diane Millstead.

One-man shows

Humphries' forté hwhen universally been his 1-one-woman satiric stage review, where he appears as Ednthe Everage & a persons of more character creations, including Les Patterson & Sandy Stone. There may be pack (whenever any) comedians world health organization potty boast a career longevity he has enjoyed by owning Dame Edna, whose popularity shows there are no signs of flagging when other than 40 years. Humphries' profits is likewise a tribute to the wow skill, style & insight -- & the sheer stiff operate -- that he invests within performing both-&-a-half hour shows of totally original lesson, tied by using ad-libbing, improvisation & the famed audience participation segments.

Humphries has got numerous successful stage productions around London, virtually all of which he later toured internationally. Despite his late popularity, he found strong trend lines in the early years of his career -- his number 1 London 1-one-woman indicate ''A Nice Night's Entertainment (1962) received scathing reviews and it was several years before he made a second attempt. He gained considerable ill fame sustaining his next a single-human review Just A Show'', staged at London's Fortune Theatre in 1969. It polarized the critics however was a hit by having audiences & became the basis of a growing cult as a result in the UK. He continued to benefit popularity by owning his early '70s shows including A Load Of Olde Stuffe (1971) and ''At Least You Can Say That You've Seen It (1974-75).

He eventually broke across to far flung critical & audience plaudits inside Britain using his 1976 London production Housewife, Superstar! at the Apollo Theatre. Its profits witharound Britaaround & Australithe led Humphries to try his luck using a indicate in Up to date York in 1977, however it proved to exist as a calamitous repetition of his own household budget by having Merely The Indicate. Humphries late summed higher his veto reception by expression: "When the New York Times tells you to close, you close."

His next indicate was Isn't It Pathetic At His Age (1978). Rather numerous of his shows, a title quotes one of a remarks his mother typically processed while she took Barry to the theatre to watch superannuated overseas actors itinerant around Australia in the period of his youth.

His subsequent a single-one-woman shows include:

A Night With Dame Edna (1979), which won the Society of West End Theatres Award An Evening's Intercourse With Dame Edna (1982) 3 seasons of Back with a Vengeance (1987-1988, 2005) Look at Me When I'm Talking to You (1996) Edna, The Spectacle (1998) at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, where he holds a record when a single solo work to fill a theatre since it opened within 1663 Remember You're Out which toured Australia in 1999.

He has manufactured many theatrical tours inside Germany, Scandinavia, the Netherlands, & in the Far and Middle East. Within 2003 he toured Australia by owning his latest indicate, Getting Back To My Roots (And Other Suckers).

Dame Edna
Independent article: Dame Edna Everage

Edna Everage is without doubt one of a best known & enduring Australian amusing characters of a lot time,and one of a longest-lived comedic characerisations ever devised. Originally conceived in the late 1950s, Edna has lang syne transcended her mild origins as a satire of Australian suburbia to become one of a virtually all successful, right-known & better loved comedy characters ever. She hwhen grown all over a years to be, as journalist Caroline Overington puts it:

"... a perfect parody of a modern, vainglorious celebrity with a rampant ego and a strong aversion to the audience (whom celebrities pretend to love but actually, as Edna so boldly makes transparent, they actually loathe for their cheap shoes and suburban values). (The Sydney Morning Herald'')

Like her ever-present bunches of gladioli, one of the most popular and distinctive features of Edna's stage and TV appearances has been her extravagant wardrobe, with gaudy, custom-made gowns that satiricaly outdo the most outrageous creations of Hollywood showbiz designers such as Bob Mackie. Her costumes, most of which were created for her by Australian designer Bill Goodwin, routinely incorporate Aussie kitsch icons such as the flag, Australian native animals and flowers, the Sydney Opera House and the boxing kangaroo.

As the character evolved, Edna's always unseen family became an integral part of the satire, particularly the travails of her invalid husband Norm, who suffered from an almost lifelong onslaught of an unspecified prostate ailment. Her daughter Valmai and her gay, window-dresser son Kenny also became intrinsic elements of the act, as did her long-suffering best friend and bridesmaid, Madge Allsop.

Throughout Edna's career, Madge has been played by New Zealand-born actress Emily Perry, now aged in her 80s, who has the distinction of being the only other actor ever to appear on stage with Humphries in his stage shows, as well as making regular appearances in Dame Edna's TV programs.

Dame Edna is also notable as one of the only satirical characters to make a successful transition from stage to TV without losing popularity in either genre, and her decades-long popularity shows no signs of waning. The talk show format provided a perfect outlet for Humphries' rapier wit and his legendary ability to ad-lib, and it enabled Edna to draw on a wide and appreciative pool of fans among fellow actors and comedians, with scores of top-rank stars lining up to be lampooned on her shows. As other Australian actors have begun to make a wider impression in international film and television, Edna has not hesitated to reveal that it was her mentorship which helped "kiddies" like "little Nicole Kidman" to achieve their early success.

Television roles

Humphries' numerous television appearances in Australia, the UK and the USA include The Bunyip, a children's comedy for Channel 7 in Melbourne. IN the UK he made two highly successful series of his talk show The Dame Edna Experience for London Weekend Television. The series boasted a phalanx of superstar guests including Liza Minnelli, Robin Williams, Cher, Roger Moore, Charlton Heston and Kim Basinger. These enormously popular programs have since been repeated worldwide and the special A Night On Mount Edna won Humphries the Golden Rose of Montreux in 1991. He wrote and starred in ABC-TV's The Life And Death Of Sandy Stone (1991) and presented the ABC social history series ''Barry Humphries' Flashbacks in 1999.

His more recent television shows include Dame Edna's Neighbourhood Watch, Dame Edna's Work Experience and Dame Edna's Hollywood'', an occasional series filmed in the U.S. for the NBC and the Fox network. Edna's most recent television special was Dame Edna Kisses It Better.

Success in the United States

Barry Humphries finally realised his long-delayed dream of success in the United States when he took Dame Edna - The Royal Tour to Broadway in 2000, scoring a smash hit and winning rave reviews. As a result Humphries won the inaugural 'Special Tony Award for a Live Theatrical Event' in 2000 and two National Broadway Theatre Awards for "Best Play" and for "Better Actor" in 2001. Asked what ist was like to win a Tony award by an Australian journalist he said " it was like winning K Gold Logies at the equivalent period".

Edna's new-found success in America led to many media opportunities, including a cameo appearance in the hit TV series Ally McBeal. Vanity Fair magazine then invited Dame Edna to write a satirical advice column but she unwittingly created a storm of controversy with a piece published in the February 2003 issue. Replying to a reader who asked if she should learn Spanish, she replied:

"Forget Spanish. There's nothing therein language worth reading except Don Quixote, and the test2 listen to the CD of Man of La Mancha will take care of that ... World health organization speaks it you come really desperate to talk to? A serve? Your computers leaf blower?"

Edna's satirical intent -- poking fun at the haughty attitudes of wealthy Americans who hire low-waged Hispanic domestic workers -- evidently went over the heads of some readers. Many who subsequently complained appeared not to realise that Dame Edna was merely a character and that 'she' was not really a woman. Members of the Hispanic community took the joke out of context, reading it as a deliberately racist remark, and complaints flooded in to the magazine. Hollywood actress Selma Hayek responded angrily, penning a furious letter in which she denounced Dame Edna. Death threats were even received and Vanity Fair was eventually forced to publish a full-page apology to the Hispanic community.

Humphries commented later. "If smart shoppers keep around to show you sarcasm to individual, you will too give higher." When questioned about the controversy (as Dame Edna) on the eve of her 2003 Australian tour, she retorted that Hayek's denunciation was due to "agency jealousy", and that Hayek was envious because the role of painter Frida Kahlo (for which Hayek received an Oscar nomination) had originally been offered to Edna:

"After I personally personally was offered a a share of Frida I turned it down, & she was a 2nd selection. We said 'We'm non swimming the role of the woman by using the mustache & a monobrow, & I personally'm non with equivalent-sex relations on the screen' ... I personally'm non racist. We love a lot races, particularly caucasoid race. Wise shoppers understand, We possibly prefer Roman Catholics."

Other work

Humphries is the author of eighteen books including two autobiographies, two novels and a treatise on Chinese drama in the goldfields. He has also written several plays and has made dozens of recordings. The first volume of his autobiography More Please won the J.R. Ackerley prize for biography in 1993. He was the subject of two critical and biographical studies: The Real Barry Humphries by Peter Coleman, and Dame Edna Everage and the Rise of Western Civilization by John Lahr. His second volume of autobiography, My Life As Me, was published in late 2002.

Awards
1982 - Order of Australia 1993 - J.R. Ackerley prize for his autobiography More, Please 1994 - Honorary Doctorate at Griffith University 1997 - Sir Peter Ustinov Award for Comedy presented at the Banff Television Festival 2000 - Special Tony Award for a live theatrical event at the 55th Annual Tony Awards for Dame Edna: The Royal Tour 2000 - Special Achievement Award by the Outer Critics Circle for The Royal Tour 2000 - Best Play from the National Broadway Theatre Awards for The Royal Tour 2003 - Honorary Doctorate of Law at his alma mater, University of Melbourne