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.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Barry Humphries, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Barry Humphries Biography / Wiki
| Name | Barry Humphries |
| Also Know | Dame Edna Everage |
| Gender | Male |
| Known For | Acting |
| Place of Birth | Camberwell, Melbourne, Australia |
| Date of Birth | February 17, 1934 |
| Age(as in 2023 Feb) | 89 |
| Deathday | 2023-04-22 |
Barry Humphries Acting Movies
| Movie Name | Character | Release Date | Overview |
| Les Patterson Saves the World | Sir Les Patterson / Dame Edna Everage | 1987-04-09 | Fat middle aged 24/7 drunkard Les Patterson represents Australia at the UN where his fart literally incinerates an Arab ambassador. Patterson is reass… |
| A Toast to Melbourne | 1981-01-01 | Using archival film, aerial photography, stills, prints and contemporary footage, this documentary presents the city of Melbourne and its lifestyle. L… | |
| A (BBC Arena) Birthday Tribute to Dame Edna Everage | Edna Everage | 1984-02-17 | As much a parody of the typical BBC documentary style as an extravagant curtsy to Dame Edna Everage, Housewife Superstar. The Dame is known mostly thr… |
| Barry Humphries Presents Back to My Roots and Other Suckers | Sir Les Patterson/Owen Steele/Sandy Stone/Dame Edna Everage | 2003-12-08 | Recorded live at the State Theatre, Victorian Arts Centre on the 15th of August 2003. Contains the hilarious on-stage antics of Dame Edna Everage, Sir… |
| An Audience with Dame Edna Everage | 1980-12-26 | Dame Edna Everage takes questions from a celebrity audience about her life and career…. | |
| One More Audience with Dame Edna Everage | Dame Edna Everage | 1988-12-25 | The gloriously glamorous Dame Edna entertains a celebrity audience in this 1988 special…. |
| Dame Edna’s Neighbourhood Watch | Dame Edna | With her familiar greeting of “Welcome possums!” Dame Edna uses her purple possum picker to find three contestants from the all-female audience of her… | |
| Another Audience with Dame Edna Everage | Dame Edna | Dame Edna shares her views and answers questions in front of a celebrity audience…. | |
| The Adventures of Barry McKenzie | Aunt Edna Everage | 1972-01-01 | Barry McKenzie sets off for England with his aunt, Edna Everage, to advance his cultural education. Bazza is an innocent abroad, fond of beer, Bondi a… |
| Barry McKenzie Holds His Own | Edna Everage | 1974-12-12 | Barry McKenzie’s Aunt Edna is kidnapped by Count Von Plasma, the vampire head of an isolated Eastern European dictatorship who mistakes her for the Qu… |
| The Naked Bunyip | Edna Everage | 1970-02-02 | A shy young man is hired by an ad agency to conduct a survey on sex in Australia. The somewhat clueless young man investigates homosexuality, transves… |
| Side by Side | 1975-04-30 | Glam Rock musical comedy about two clashing nightclubs… | |
| Joan Rivers: Abroad in London | Dame Edna Everage | 1992-10-08 | Joan delivers her biting tongue to the Queen and her country…. |
| Making Mary and Max | 2009-10-21 | The behind-the-scenes film for the production of Mary and Max…. | |
| Michael McIntyre’s Big Christmas Show | Herself | 2015-12-25 | In this Christmas Day special, Michael presents leading comedians including Dara O Briain, the fabulous Dame Edna Everage, and ventriloquist and winne… |
| Mary and Max | Narrator (voice) | 2009-02-09 | A tale of friendship between two unlikely pen pals: Mary, a lonely, eight-year-old girl living in the suburbs of Melbourne, and Max, a forty-four-year… |
| Peter Cook and Dudley Moore: The Missing Sketches | Himself | 2016-12-31 | This documentary showcases a number of new clips which have recently come to light from sketches which were thought to have been lost forever, some no… |
| Pterodactyl Woman from Beverly Hills | Bert / Lady Shopper / Manager | 1997-10-07 | Pixie is cursed with turning into a Pterodactyl when her husband is caught messing with bones on an ancient burial ground. Her husband, children, frie… |
| The Rocky Horror Treatment | Himself | 1981-02-04 | A 1981 documentary looking at the Cult following of the Rocky Horror show and introducing the sequel “Shock Treatment”…. |
| An Audience with Jackie Mason | 1990-12-27 | The great American comedian Jackie Mason entertains a celebrity audience including Bruce Forsyth, Barry Humphries, Henry Cooper and Michael Winner…. | |
| Welcome to Woop Woop | Blind Wally | 1998-08-13 | A con artist escapes a deal gone wrong in New York and winds up in the Aussie outback in a strange town whose inhabitants are an oddball collection of… |
| The Leading Man | Humphrey Beal | 1996-12-12 | Successful playwright Felix Webb has a new play, ‘The Hit Man’, in rehearsal. Directed by his old friend Humphrey, it is already being hailed as a mas… |
| Bedazzled | Envy | 1967-10-30 | Stanley is infatuated with Margaret, the statuesque waitress who works with him. He meets George Spiggott AKA the devil and sells his soul for 7 wishe… |
| The Great MacArthy | Col Ball-Miller | 1975-08-04 | Macarthy is a country town football champ who is kidnapped in a neon lit helicopter by tyrant Colonel Ball-Miller, the tycoon president of the South M… |
| Salvation | Client | 2009-03-19 | Aging artist and scholar Barry is disenchanted with his existence – disillusioned by his sexless marriage to a televangelist, and repulsed by her bran… |
| Blinky Bill the Movie | Wombo (voice) | 2015-08-21 | Blinky Bill is a little koala with a big imagination. An adventurer at heart, he dreams of leaving the little town of Green Patch and following in his… |
| Da Kath & Kim Code | John Monk | 2005-11-27 | The squabbling mother and daughter, Kath and Kim, embark on an excursion into the unexplored crannies of life at Lagoon Court, Fountain Lakes…. |
| Pleasure at Her Majesty’s | Edna Everage | 1976-12-29 | The first of the Amnesty International comedy benefit galas. The title is a play on the phrase at Her Majesty’s pleasure (the show was performed at He… |
| Some Interesting Facts About Peter Cook | Self | 1995-12-19 | A documentary about the life of British comedian and journalist Peter Cook…. |
| Immortal Beloved | Clemens Metternich | 1994-12-16 | A chronicle of the life of infamous classical composer Ludwig van Beethoven and his painful struggle with hearing loss. Following Beethoven’s death in… |
| The Getting of Wisdom | Rev. Strachey | 1977-08-25 | The Getting of Wisdom is based on the 1910 novel by Henry Handel Richardson (born Ethel Florence Lindesay Richardson). Her novel is thought to be an a… |
| Standing Up for Sunny | Barry Humphries | 2019-06-12 | An isolated guy with cerebral palsy is railroaded into helping an unassertive comedienne, and finds love and acceptance through stand-up comedy…. |
| Peter Cook and Dudley Moore: The Missing Sketches | 2016-12-31 | Peter Cook and Dudley Moore are still considered to be one of Britain’s most outstanding comedy double acts. But despite their popularity, much of the… | |
| Shock Treatment | Bert Schnick | 1981-10-30 | Janet and Brad Majors, unhappily married, are separated after appearing on a game show. Janet becomes a superstar while Brad is thrown into a mental h… |
| Percy’s Progress | Dr. Anderson / Australian TV Lady | 1974-08-01 | Percy, the man with the world’s first penis transplant, discovers that there is a chemical in the world’s water that makes men impotent…. |
| Jack Irish: Dead Point | Justice Logan | 2014-04-13 | Jack Irish is thrown into a world of club owners, drug dealers and killers when he is hired by a judge to find a mysterious red book…. |
| Dr. Fischer of Geneva | Richard Deane | 1984-10-08 | Dr. Fischer has an unusual hobby — to expose human greed. How much humiliation will his fellow man endure enticed by valuable presents? Dignity for … |
| Kath & Kimderella | Dame Edna Everage | 2012-09-06 | Kath & Kim turn more than just heads when they go on an overseas trip and end up being the centre of their very own fairytale…. |
| Selling Hitler | Rupert Murdoch | 1991-06-11 | In 1981, Gerd Heidemann, a war correspondent and reporter with the German magazine Stern, makes what he believes is the literary and historical scoop … |
| Howling III: The Marsupials | Academy Award Presenter | 1987-05-15 | A strange race of human-like marsupials appear suddenly in Australia, and a sociologist who studies these creatures falls in love with a female one. I… |
| The Secret Policeman’s Other Ball | Himself – Various Roles | 1982-03-01 | Following the success of the 1979 show and the financial benefits accruing to Amnesty from the spin-off movie, TV special and record albums – Cleese… |
| Justin and the Knights of Valour | Braulio (voice) | 2013-08-09 | A heart-warming tale about friendship, honor & courage, which sees a young boy become a man as he embarks on a quest to become a knight…. |
| We Are Most Amused | Himself | 2008-11-15 | We Are Most Amused was a gala event held at the New Wimbledon Theatre on 12 November 2008 in honour of the 60th birthday of Charles, Prince of Wales, … |
| Spice World | Kevin McMaxford | 1997-12-18 | World famous pop group the Spice Girls zip around London in their luxurious double decker tour bus having various adventures and performing for their … |
| The Bliss of Mrs. Blossom | Mr. Wainwright | 1968-09-11 | Harriet Blossom is married to Robert Blossom, a businessman who’d rather spend the night at his bra factory than at home with her. One day, Harriet’s … |
| Napoleon | Kangaroo (voice) | 1995-06-30 | The adventures of Golden Retriever pup Napoleon and his friend, the parrot Birdo Lucci…. |
| It Started with Swap Shop | Self | 2006-12-28 | Noel Edmonds, Keith Chegwin, John Craven and Maggie Philbin reunite for a one-off edition of the Saturday morning classic Swap Shop to celebrate its 3… |
| Remember the Secret Policeman’s Ball? | Himself – Edna Everage | 2004-12-09 | The Secret Policeman benefit shows for Amnesty International brought together comedy grand masters – from Python and Beyond the Fringe – and performer… |
| Finding Nemo | Bruce (voice) | 2003-05-30 | Nemo, an adventurous young clownfish, is unexpectedly taken from his Great Barrier Reef home to a dentist’s office aquarium. It’s up to his worrisome … |
| Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie | Charlie / Dame Edna | 2016-07-01 | Edina and Patsy are still oozing glitz and glamor, living the high life they are accustomed to; shopping, drinking and clubbing their way around Londo… |
| Nicholas Nickleby | Mrs. Crummies/Mr. Leadville | 2002-12-27 | Nicholas Nickleby, a young boy in search of a better life, struggles to save his family and friends from the abusive exploitation of his coldheartedly… |
| The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey | Great Goblin | 2012-11-26 | Bilbo Baggins, a hobbit enjoying his quiet life, is swept into an epic quest by Gandalf the Grey and thirteen dwarves who seek to reclaim their mounta… |
| Not Quite Hollywood | Self | 2008-08-28 | As Australian cinema broke through to international audiences in the 1970s through respected art house films like Peter Weir’s “Picnic At Hanging Rock… |
| Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band | Our Guests at Heartland | 1978-07-24 | A small town band makes it big, but loses track of their roots, as they get caught up into the big-time machinations of the music biz. Now, they must … |
Writing
| Movie Name | Job | Release Date | Overview |
| The Adventures of Barry McKenzie | Writer | 1972-01-01 | Barry McKenzie sets off for England with his aunt, Edna Everage, to advance his cultural education. Bazza is an innocent abroad, fond of beer, Bondi a… |
| Les Patterson Saves the World | Writer | 1987-04-09 | Fat middle aged 24/7 drunkard Les Patterson represents Australia at the UN where his fart literally incinerates an Arab ambassador. Patterson is reass… |
| Barry McKenzie Holds His Own | Writer | 1974-12-12 | Barry McKenzie’s Aunt Edna is kidnapped by Count Von Plasma, the vampire head of an isolated Eastern European dictatorship who mistakes her for the Qu… |
| Barry Humphries Presents Back to My Roots and Other Suckers | Writer | 2003-12-08 | Recorded live at the State Theatre, Victorian Arts Centre on the 15th of August 2003. Contains the hilarious on-stage antics of Dame Edna Everage, Sir… |
Other Info
| Movie Name | Job | Release Date | Overview |
| Creator | Following her sell-out farewell tour, Dame Edna Everage has been offshore, enjoying some luxury downtime on-board her enormous superyacht, The Ocean W… | ||
Credit: TMDB
Checkout The More Celebrities Profiles in Biography World