Barry Humphries
Personal Info
Known For
Acting
Known Credits
114
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
The Graham Norton Show
Saturday Night Live
Hollywood Squares
The One Show
The One Show
Wogan
The View
QI
QI
Late Night with Conan O'Brien
The Tonight Show with Jay Leno
The Tonight Show with Jay Leno
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Pebble Mill
Finding Nemo
Q&A
Parkinson
The Tony Danza Show
The Wednesday Play
An Audience with...
An Audience with...
Omnibus
Omnibus
The South Bank Show
Ally McBeal
Boulevard Bio
RTL Samstag Nacht
A Toast to Melbourne
Mary and Max
Howling III: The Marsupials
Nicholas Nickleby
An Audience with Jackie Mason
Michael McIntyre's Big Christmas Show
The Osbournes
Barry Humphries at the BBC
The Bliss of Mrs. Blossom
Blinky Bill the Movie
It Started with Swap Shop
Immortal Beloved
Standing Up for Sunny
Dr. Fischer of Geneva
Some Interesting Facts About Peter Cook
Making Mary and Max
Bedazzled
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
The Getting of Wisdom
Pterodactyl Woman from Beverly Hills
The Rocky Horror Treatment
Who Do You Think You Are?
Jack Irish: Dead Point
Justin and the Knights of Valour
The Adventures of Barry McKenzie
Parkinson at 50
Salvation
Napoleon
Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie
An Audience with Dame Edna Everage
Les Patterson Saves the World
Not Quite Hollywood
The Dame Edna Experience
Barry McKenzie Holds His Own
Little Britain Down Under
Show of Titles
I'd Do Anything
The Great Comic Relief Bake Off
One More Audience with Dame Edna Everage
The Great MacArthy
Percy's Progress
Remember the Secret Policeman's Ball?
The Dame Edna Treatment
Russell Harty
A Comedy Roast
Spice World
Shock Treatment
Comedy Rocks with Jason Manford
Joan Rivers: Abroad in London
Kath & Kimderella
We Are Most Amused
Dame Edna's Neighbourhood Watch
Micallef Tonight
Peter Cook and Dudley Moore: The Missing Sketches
Magical Land of Oz
Betjeman and Me
The Team: A Season With McLaren
Sandy Comes Home
Barry Humphries Presents Back to My Roots and Other Suckers
Brilliant Creatures
Barry Humphries: This is Your Lunch
The Secret Policeman's Other Ball
Royal Variety Performance 1984
Welcome to Woop Woop
A Granny's Guide to the Modern World
The Man Inside Dame Edna
Dame Edna's Hollywood
Dame Edna Rules The Waves
The Leading Man
Telling Schoolgirl Tales: The Making of 'The Getting of Wisdom’
Selling Hitler
Pleasure at Her Majesty's
Another Audience with Dame Edna Everage
Barry Humphries: The Last Laugh
Sir Les And The Great Chinese Takeaway
The Naked Bunyip
A Late Lunch With Sir Les
A Birthday Tribute to Dame Edna Everage
The Life and Death of Sandy Stone
Gaybo Laughs Back
Les Patterson 'Has A Stand Up' - Live & Rampant
Da Kath & Kim Code
Side by Side
An Aussie Audience with Dame Edna
Barry Humphries - A Life of Laughs
