Barry Humphries
Early life
Early life
Humphries was born and raised in the suburb of Camberwell in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, the son of Louisa and Eric Humphries, a construction manager. His grandfather was an immigrant to Australia from Manchester, England. His father was well-to-do and Barry grew up in a "clean, tasteful and modern home" in Camberwell, then one of Melbourne's new 'garden suburbs'. His early home life set the pattern for his eventual stage career his parents bought him everything he wanted, but his father in particular spent little time with him so he spent hours playing 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 if they were laughing."
His parents nicknamed him "Sunny Sam", and his early childhood was happy and uneventful, but in his teens Humphries began to rebel against the strictures of conventional suburban life by becoming "artistic" much to the dismay of his parents who, despite their affluence, distrusted "art". A key event took place when he was nine his mother gave all his books to The Salvation Army, cheerfully explaining: "But you've read them, Barry."
Humphries responded by becoming a voracious reader, a collector of rare books, a painter, a theatre fan and a surrealist. Dressing up in a black cloak, black homburg and mascaraed eyes, he invented his first sustained character, "Dr Aaron Azimuth", agent provocateur, dandy and Dadaist.
School and university years
Educated at Camberwell Grammar School, he has been awarded his place in the Gallery of Achievement there. As his father's building business prospered, Humphries was sent to Melbourne Grammar School where he spurned sport, detested mathematics, shirked cadets "on the basis of conscientious objection" and matriculated with brilliant results in English and Art. Humphries himself described this schooling, in a Who's Who entry, as "self-educated, attended Melbourne Grammar School."
He spent two years studying at the University of Melbourne (Queen's College), where he studied law, philosophy and fine arts. During this time he became Australia's leading exponent of the deconstructive and absurdist art movement, Dada. The Dadaist pranks and performances he mounted in Melbourne were experiments in anarchy and visual satire which have become part of Australian folklore. An exhibit entitled "Pus In Boots" consisted of a pair of Wellington boots filled with custard; a mock pesticide product called "Platytox" claimed on its box to be effective against the platypus, a beloved and protected species in Australia.
He was part of a group that made a series of Dada-influenced recordings in Melbourne from 195253. "Wubbo Music" (Humphries has said that "wubbo" is a pseudo-Aboriginal word meaning "nothing") is thought to be one of the earliest recordings of experimental music in Australia.
He was also legendary for his provocative public pranks. One infamous example involved Humphries dressing as a Frenchman, with an accomplice dressed as a blind person; the accomplice would board a tram, followed soon after by Humphries. At the appropriate juncture Humphries would force his way past the "blind" man, yelling "Get out of my way, you disgusting blind person", kicking him viciously in the shins and then jumping off the tram and making his escape in a waiting car.
An even more extreme example was his notorious "sick bag" prank. This involved carrying on to an aircraft a tin of Golden Circle fruit salad, which he would then surreptitiously empty into an air-sickness bag. At the appropriate point in the flight, he would pretend to vomit loudly and violently into the bag. Then, to the horror of passengers and crew, he would proceed to eat the contents. One April Fools' Day Humphries placed a roast dinner and glass of champagne in an inner-city bin. Later in the morning, when there were many businesspeople queuing at a nearby building, Humphries approached the group as a dirty, dishevelled man. He walked to the bin, opened the lid and proceeded to lift the roast and glass of champagne and drink from the glass. Much to the amazement of watchers-by, he found a suitable seating area and began to eat the meal. Such stunts were the early manifestations of a lifelong interest in the bizarre, discomforting and subversive.
Early career in Australia
He had written and performed songs and sketches in university revues, so after leaving university he joined the newly formed Melbourne Theatre Company (MTC). It was at this point that he created the first incarnation of what became his best-known character, Edna Everage. The first stage sketch featuring Mrs Norm Everage, called "Olympic Hostess", premiered at Melbourne University's Union Theatre on 12 December 1955. In his award-winning autobiography, More Please (1992), Humphries relates that he created a character similar to Edna in the back of a bus while touring country Victoria in Twelfth Night with the MTC at the age of twenty. The dowdy Moonee Ponds housewife, originally created as a caricature of Australian suburban complacency and insularity, has 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 satirical characters include the legendary comic strip hero, nephew of Dame Edna (and progenitor of "Crocodile" Dundee) Barry McKenzie; the "priapic and inebriated cultural attach" 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 tycoon Owen Steele.
Humphries then moved to Sydney and joined Sydney's Philip Street Revue Theatre, Australia's leading venue for revue and satirical comedy. After a long season in revue he appeared as Estragon in Waiting for Godot, Australia's first production of a Samuel Beckett play.
London and the 1960s
In 1959 he settled in London where he lived and worked throughout the 1960s. He became friends with leading members of the British comedy scene including Dudley Moore, Peter Cook, Alan Bennett, Jonathan Miller, Spike Milligan, Willie Rushton and fellow Australian expatriate comedian-actors John Bluthal and Dick Bentley. Humphries performed at Cook's comedy venue The Establishment, where he also became friends with and was photographed by leading photographer Lewis Morley, whose studio was located above the club. He contributed to the satirical magazine Private Eye, of which Cook was publisher, his best-known work being the cartoon strip The Wonderful World of Barry McKenzie. The bawdy cartoon satire of the worst aspects of Australians abroad was written by Humphries and drawn by New Zealand born cartoonist Nicholas Garland. The book version of the comic strip, published in the late' 60s, was for some time banned in Australia.
Humphries appeared in numerous West End stage productions including the musicals Oliver! and Maggie May, by Lionel Bart, as well as stage and radio productions by his friend Spike Milligan. At one time he was invited to play the leading role of Captain Martin Bules in The Bed-Sitting Room, which had already opened successfully at The Mermaid Theatre, and was transferring to the West End. Humphries also performed with Milligan in the 1968 production of Treasure Island, in the role of Long John Silver. He described working with Milligan as "one of the strangest and most exhilarating experiences of my career".
In 1962 when Humphries was in Cornwall with his wife, he fell over a cliff near Zennor and landed on a ledge 150ft below, breaking bones. The rescue by helicopter was filmed by a news crew from ITN. The footage of the rescue were shown to Humphries for the first time on a 2006 BBC show, Turn Back Time.
Humphries' first major break on the British stage came when he was cast in the role of the 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 London cast album (released on Decca Records) and reprised the role when the production moved to Broadway in 1963, where it became the first London stage musical to be transplanted to Broadway and receive the same critical and audience reception it had received in Britain. However, the song "That's Your Funeral" was omitted from the RCA Victor original Broadway cast album so Humphries is not heard at all on it. In 1967 he starred as Fagin in the Piccadilly Theatre's revival of Oliver! which featured a young Phil Collins as the Artful Dodger. In 1997 Humphries reprised the role of Fagin in Cameron Mackintosh's award winning revival at the London Palladium.
In 1967 his friendship with Cook and Moore led to his first film role, a cameo as "Envy" in the hit film Bedazzled starring Cook and Moore with Eleanor Bron, and directed by Stanley Donen. The following year he appeared in The Bliss of Mrs. Blossom with Shirley MacLaine.
In the late '60s Humphries contributed to BBC-TV's popular The Late Show (which also featured Oz magazine editor Richard Neville) but Humphries found his true calling with his one-man satirical stage revues, in which he performed as Edna Everage and other character creations including Les Patterson and Sandy Stone. "A Nice Night's Entertainment" (1962) was the first such revue. It and "Excuse I: Another Nice Night's Entertainment" (1965) were only performed in Australia. In 1968 Humphries returned to Australia to tour his one-man revue Just A Show; this production transferred to London's Fortune Theatre in 1969. Humphries gained considerable notoriety with "Just A Show". It polarized British critics but was successful enough to lead to a short-lived BBC television series The Barry Humphries Scandals, one of the precursors to the Monty Python series.
1970s
In 1970 Humphries returned to Australia, where Edna Everage made her movie debut in John B. Murray's The Naked Bunyip. In 197172 he teamed up with producer Phillip Adams and writer-director Bruce Beresford to create a film version of the Barry McKenzie cartoons. The Adventures of Barry McKenzie starred singer Barry Crocker in the title role and featured Humphries who co-wrote the script with Beresford playing three different parts.
It was filmed in 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. Like several other films of the time which have since been categorised as belonging to the Ocker genre of Australian film, it was almost unanimously panned by Australian film critics, but became a huge hit with audiences. In fact, the film became the most successful locally-made feature ever released in Australia up to that time, paving the way for the success of subsequent locally made feature films like Alvin Purple and Picnic at Hanging Rock.
Another artistic production undertaken at this time was a 1972 collaboration between Humphries and the Australian composer Nigel Butterley. Together they produced First Day Covers, a collection of poems about suburbia ead in performance by Edna Everage with accompanying music by Butterley. It included poems with titles such as "Histoire du Lamington" and "Morceau en forme de 'meat pie'".
Film roles
Since the late '60s Humphries has appeared in numerous films, mostly in supporting or cameo roles. His credits include the UK sex comedy Percy's Progress (1974), David Baker's The Great Macarthy (1975) and Bruce Beresford's Barry McKenzie Holds His Own (1974) in which Edna was made a Dame by then Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam.
Other film credits include Side by Side (1975) and The Getting of Wisdom (1977). The same year, he had a cameo as 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 his part as the fake-blind TV-show host Bert Schnick in Shock Treatment, the sequel to The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
He was more successful with his featured role as Richard Deane in Dr. Fischer of Geneva (1985); this was followed by Howling III (1987), a cameo as Rupert Murdoch in the miniseries Selling Hitler (1991) with Alexei Sayle, a three-role cameo in Philippe Mora's horror satire Pterodactyl Woman from Beverly Hills (1994), the role of Count Metternich in Immortal Beloved (1994), as well as roles in The Leading Man (1996), the Spice Girls' film Spice World, the Australian feature Welcome to Woop Woop (1997), and Nicholas Nickleby (2002), in which he donned female garb to play Nathan Lane's wife.
Humphries has also featured in various roles in comedy performance films including The Secret Policeman's Other Ball (1982) and A Night of Comic Relief 2 (1989). In 1987 he starred as Les Patterson in one of his own rare flops, the disastrous Les Patterson Saves the World, directed by George T. Miller of Man From Snowy River fame and co-written by Humphries with his third wife, Diane Millstead.
In 2003 Humphries had a small role in the animated film Finding Nemo. In it he plays Bruce, a shark who attempts to curb his addiction to fish eating. He nearly falls off the wagon due to his catching a whiff of fish blood. Playing this role, given his own struggles with alcoholism, is perhaps a good example of Humphries' penchant for self-deprecation.
One-man shows
Humphries' forte has always been his one-man satirical stage revues, in which he appears as Edna Everage and a host of other character creations, including Les Patterson and Sandy Stone. There can be few (if any) comedians who can boast the career longevity he has enjoyed with Dame Edna, whose popularity shows no signs of flagging after fifty years. Humphries' success is also a tribute to the tremendous skill, style and insight and the sheer hard work that he invests in performing two-and-a-half hour shows of entirely original material, laced with ad-libbing, improvisation and audience participation segments.
Humphries has had many successful stage productions in London, most of which he subsequently toured internationally. Despite his later popularity, he encountered stiff resistance in the early years of his career his first London one-man show A Nice Night's Entertainment (1962) received scathing reviews and it was several years before he made a second attempt. He gained considerable notoriety with his next one-man revue Just A Show, staged at London's Fortune Theatre in 1969. It polarized the critics but was a hit with audiences and became the basis of a growing cult following in the UK. He continued to gain popularity with his early '70s shows including A Load of Olde Stuffe (1971) and At Least You Can Say You've Seen It (197475).
He finally broke through to widespread critical and audience acclaim in Britain with his 1976 London production Housewife, Superstar! at the Apollo Theatre. Its success in Britain and Australia led Humphries to try his luck with the show in New York in 1977, but it proved to be a disastrous repeat of his experience with Just A Show. Humphries later summed up his negative reception by saying: "When The New York Times tells you to close, you close."
His next show was Isn't It Pathetic at His Age (1978). Like many of his shows, the title quotes one of the remarks his mother often made when she took Barry to the theatre to see superannuated overseas actors touring in Australia during his youth.
His subsequent one-man 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)
Three seasons of Back with a Vengeance (19871988, 20052007)
Look at Me When I'm Talking to You (1996)
Edna, The Spectacle (1998) at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, where he held the record as the only solo act to fill the theatre (since it opened in 1663) until controversial left-wing politician George Galloway sold it out in early 2007.
Remember You're Out which toured Australia in 1999.
Back with a Vengeance which toured Australia in 2007.
Dame Edna Live: The First Last Tour toured the U.S. in 2009.
He has made numerous theatrical tours in Germany, Scandinavia, the Netherlands, and in the Far and Middle East. In 2003 he toured Australia with his latest show, Getting Back to My Roots (and Other Suckers).
Dame Edna
Main article: Dame Edna Everage
Dame Edna Everage on a billboard.
Edna Everage is undoubtedly one of the most enduring Australian comic characters of all time, and one of the longest-lived comedic characterisations ever devised. Originally conceived in 1956, Edna has long since transcended her modest origins as a satire of Australian suburbia to become one of the most successful, best-known and best loved comedy characters of all time. She has grown over the years to become, in the words of journalist Caroline Overington:
"... 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 satirically 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 Valm
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