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 onstage and television alter egos Dame Edna Everage a Melbourne housewife and gigastar and Sir Les Patterson Australias foulmouthed cultural attaché to the Court of St Jamess He was a film producer and script writer a star of Londons West End musical theatre an awardwinning 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 acidtongued 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 filmmaker Martin Agrippa Paddington socialist academic Neil Singleton sleazy trade union official Lance Boyle highpressure art salesman Morrie OConnor and failed tycoon Owen Steele Humphries died following complications from hip surgery at St Vincents Hospital in Sydney on 22 April 2023 Description above from the Wikipedia article Barry Humphries licensed under CCBYSA full list of contributors on Wikipedia
Login to comment!
