Barry Humphries
Personal Info
Known For
Acting
Known Credits
113
Gender
Male
Birthday
1934-02-17
Day of death
2023-04-22 (89 years old)
Place of Birth
Camberwell, Melbourne, Australia
Barry Humphries
Biography
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.
Known For
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson
Saturday Night Live
The Graham Norton Show
The View
The One Show
The One Show
Late Night with Conan O'Brien
Hollywood Squares
QI
QI
The Tonight Show with Jay Leno
The Tonight Show with Jay Leno
Wogan
Finding Nemo
The Tony Danza Show
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Parkinson
Ally McBeal
Omnibus
Omnibus
Pebble Mill
Q&A
Napoleon
The Wednesday Play
An Audience with...
An Audience with...
The South Bank Show
RTL Samstag Nacht
Howling III: The Marsupials
Mary and Max
Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie
The Great Comic Relief Bake Off
The Dame Edna Experience
Bedazzled
Boulevard Bio
The Osbournes
Who Do You Think You Are?
Salvation
Show of Titles
Kath & Kimderella
Immortal Beloved
Spice World
Nicholas Nickleby
Russell Harty
Blinky Bill the Movie
Barry Humphries: This is Your Lunch
The Dame Edna Treatment
Parkinson at 50
A Granny's Guide to the Modern World
Justin and the Knights of Valour
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
A Comedy Roast
Magical Land of Oz
The Team: A Season With McLaren
Not Quite Hollywood
The Naked Bunyip
Welcome to Woop Woop
Betjeman and Me
Dame Edna's Neighbourhood Watch
Standing Up for Sunny
The Leading Man
Brilliant Creatures
I'd Do Anything
Micallef Tonight
Jack Irish: Dead Point
It Started with Swap Shop
Comedy Rocks with Jason Manford
Shock Treatment
The Adventures of Barry McKenzie
The Getting of Wisdom
Percy's Progress
Remember the Secret Policeman's Ball?
Dr. Fischer of Geneva
The Bliss of Mrs. Blossom
Barry McKenzie Holds His Own
Royal Variety Performance 1984
The Secret Policeman's Other Ball
An Audience with Dame Edna Everage
Barry Humphries at the BBC
Side by Side
Da Kath & Kim Code
Selling Hitler
Les Patterson Saves the World
Pterodactyl Woman from Beverly Hills
Dame Edna's Hollywood
The Great MacArthy
An Audience with Jackie Mason
Peter Cook and Dudley Moore: The Missing Sketches
One More Audience with Dame Edna Everage
Little Britain Down Under
The Man Inside Dame Edna
We Are Most Amused
Pleasure at Her Majesty's
Making Mary and Max
Gaybo Laughs Back
A Night on Mount Edna
Barry Humphries: The Last Laugh
A Late Lunch With Sir Les
A Birthday Tribute to Dame Edna Everage
Some Interesting Facts About Peter Cook
Michael McIntyre's Big Christmas Show
Barry Humphries - A Life of Laughs
The Rocky Horror Treatment
Dame Edna Rules The Waves
Sir Les And The Great Chinese Takeaway
Another Audience with Dame Edna Everage
A Toast to Melbourne
Joan Rivers: Abroad in London
Telling Schoolgirl Tales: The Making of 'The Getting of Wisdom’
Barry Humphries Presents Back to My Roots and Other Suckers
An Aussie Audience with Dame Edna
Les Patterson 'Has A Stand Up' - Live & Rampant
