Barry Humphries obit

 

Dame Edna creator Barry Humphries dies aged 89

For decades, the Melbourne writer, satirist and performer was inseparable from his much-loved characters. Now, all have taken their final bow.

He was not on the list.

Barry Humphries, alter ego of Dame Edna Everage, has died following hip surgery complications, aged 89.

He leaves behind fourth wife Lizzie Spender and four children.

His death was announced on Saturday evening.

Humphries was in a Sydney hospital with complications from surgery after he broke his hip in February.

Anthony Albanese tweeted out -  For 89 years, Barry Humphries entertained us through a galaxy of personas, from Dame Edna to Sandy Stone. But the brightest star in that galaxy was always Barry. A great wit, satirist, writer and an absolute one-of-kind, he was both gifted and a gift. May he rest in peace.

he comedian married four times, but has been with fourth wife Spender since 1990. His four children include actress Tessa Humphries and journalist and fine art dealer Oscar Humphries.

Born in Melbourne on February 17, 1934, Humphries found international fame through a series of comic characters, with Dame Edna Everage perhaps the best known.

Humphries grew up in the leafy Melbourne suburb of Camberwell and went to Melbourne University to study law.

But he left after two years, pursuing his passion for live performance, making his way in the early 1960s to London where he refined his craft. Humphries never finished his degree but did receive an honorary Doctorate of Law from the university in 2003.

In the early 1970s, Humphries returned to Australia and his fame quickly grew.

Two early triumphs were the hit movies - based on Humphries’ own characters - The Adventures Of Barry McKenzie in 1972, followed by the 1974 sequel Barry McKenzie Holds His Own.

It was during an unscripted cameo in that film, with his wife Margaret, that then-prime minister Gough Whitlam took it upon himself to make Aunt Edna a dame.

Over the decades to follow, Humphries became a regular fixture on the stage and on screen, either as himself or as Dame Edna, in roles as varied as the 1997 Spice Girls movie Spice World, 2012’s The Hobbit and 2012 Kath And Kim film, Kath & Kinderella.

And Dame Edna even earned her own credit with a guest role on the early 2000s US show Ally McBeal, as well as hosting various chats shows over the 1990s in Australia and the UK.

Despite his age, Humphries was still performing live across North America, the UK and Australia well into the 2000s, most recently touring his one-man show Barry Humphries: The Man Behind The Mask across the UK in 2022.

He was due to tour Australia with characters Dame Edna and Sir Les in tow later this year.

However, Humphries had a fall at his home in February and required hip surgery. He was discharged but readmitted due to “complications”.

Humphries was a good friend of the English poet John Betjeman until Betjeman's death in 1984. Their friendship began in 1960 after Betjeman, while visiting Australia, heard some of Humphries' early recordings and wrote very favourably of them in an Australian newspaper. Their friendship was, in part, based around numerous shared interests, including Victorian architecture, Cornwall and the music hall.

Humphries appeared in the 2013 documentary Chalky about his longtime friend and colleague Michael White, who produced many of Humphries' first Dame Edna shows in the UK.

Other notable friends of Humphries included the painter Arthur Boyd, the author and former politician Jeffrey Archer, whom Humphries visited during Archer's stay in prison, and the comedian Spike Milligan.

Humphries spent much of his life immersed in music, literature and the arts. A self-proclaimed 'bibliomaniac', his house in West Hampstead, London, supposedly contains some 25,000 books, many of them first editions of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Some of the more arcane and rare items in this collection include the telephone book of Oscar Wilde, Memoirs of a Public Baby by Philip O'Connor, an autographed copy of Humdrum by Harold Acton, the complete works of Wilfred Childe and several volumes of the pre-war surrealist poetry of Herbert Read.

He was a prominent art collector who, as a result of his three divorces, bought many of his favourite paintings four times. He at one time had the largest private collection of the paintings of Charles Conder in the world and he was a great admirer of the Flemish symbolist painter Jan Frans De Boever, relishing his role as 'President for Life' of the De Boever Society. He himself was a landscape painter and his pictures are in private and public collections both in his homeland and abroad. Humphries was also the subject of numerous portraits by artist friends, including Clifton Pugh (1958, National Portrait Gallery) and John Brack (in the character of Edna Everage, 1969, Art Gallery of New South Wales.

Humphries' numerous television appearances in Australia, the UK and the US include The Bunyip, a children's comedy for the Seven Network in Melbourne. In the UK he made two highly successful series of his comedy talk show The Dame Edna Experience for London Weekend Television. The series boasted a variety of famous guests including Liza Minnelli, Sean Connery, Roger Moore, Dusty Springfield, Charlton Heston and Jane Seymour.

These highly popular programmes 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 (1999).

His other television shows and one-off specials include Dame Edna's Neighbourhood Watch (1992), Dame Edna's Work Experience (1996), Dame Edna Kisses It Better (1997) and Dame Edna's Hollywood (1991–92), a series of three chat-show specials filmed in the US for the NBC and the Fox network. Like The Dame Edna Experience, these included an array of top celebrity guests such as Burt Reynolds, Cher, Bea Arthur, Kim Basinger and Barry Manilow. Edna's most recent television special was Dame Edna Live at the Palace in 2003. He starred in the Kath & Kim telemovie Da Kath & Kim Code in late 2005.

In 1977 Dame Edna guest-starred on the U.S. sketch comedy and variety show Saturday Night Live.

In 2007, Humphries returned to the UK's ITV to host another comedy chat-show called The Dame Edna Treatment, a similar format to The Dame Edna Experience from 20 years earlier. The series once again boasted a collection of high-profile celebrity guests, such as Tim Allen, Mischa Barton, Sigourney Weaver, Debbie Harry, and Shirley Bassey.

In March 2008, Humphries joined the judging panel on the BBC talent show I'd Do Anything to find an unknown lead to play the part of Nancy in a West End revival of the musical Oliver!.

In May 2013, Australia's ABC Network announced that Humphries would be joining the cast of Australian telemovie series, Jack Irish, playing a high-profile judge in the third movie in the series. He appeared as Justice Loder in the 2014 "Dead Point" episode.

In 2003, Humphries voiced the shark Bruce in the Pixar animated film Finding Nemo, using an exaggerated baritone Australian accent.

During 2011, Humphries travelled to New Zealand to perform the role of the Great Goblin in the first instalment of Peter Jackson's three-part adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit. At the press conference in Wellington, New Zealand, just before the film's world premiere, Humphries commented:

It was thrilling to work on this film and when you see my extraordinary interpretation you realise why I immediately fell into the arms of Jenny Craig, and minor cosmetic surgery. I always thought motion capture was something you did when you were taking a specimen at the doctor.

In 2015, Humphries voiced the role of Wombo the Wombat in Blinky Bill the Movie.

In 2016, he appeared in a dual role in Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie as Charlie, a rich former lover of Patsy Stone, and in a nonspeaking cameo as Dame Edna.

 

Filmography

 

Bedazzled (1967) – Envy

The Adventures of Barry McKenzie (1972) – Aunt Edna Everage / Hoot / Dr DeLamphrey

Barry McKenzie Holds His Own (1974) – Aunt Edna Everage / Dr DeLamphrey

Percy's Progress (1974) – Dr. Anderson / Australian TV Lady

Side by Side (1975) – Rodney

The Great Macarthy (1975) – Colonel Ball-Miller

The Getting of Wisdom (1977) – Rev. Strachey

Shock Treatment (1981) – Bert Schnick

Dr. Fischer of Geneva (1985)

Les Patterson Saves the World (1986) – Sir Les Patterson / Dame Edna Everage

Immortal Beloved (1994) – Klemens von Metternich

Napoleon (1995) – Kangaroo (voice)

Pterodactyl Woman from Beverly Hills (1995) – Bert / Lady shopper / Manager

Spice World (1997) – Kevin McMaxford

Nicholas Nickleby (2002) – Mrs. Crummles

Finding Nemo (2003) – Bruce (voice)

Da Kath & Kim Code (2005) telemovie – John Monk

Mary and Max (2009) – Narrator

The Kangaroo Gang (2011) TV documentary – Narrator

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012) – Great Goblin

Kath & Kimderella (2012) – Dame Edna Everage

Chalky (2013) documentary

Justin and the Knights of Valour (2013) – Braulio (voice)

Blinky Bill the Movie (2015) – Wombo (voice)

Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie (2016) – Charlie and Dame Edna Everage (dual role)

The Magical Land of Oz (2019) Australian wildlife documentary, ABC – Narrator