Australian comedian Barry Humphries, creator of Dame Edna, dies at 89

Barry Humphries, the comic finest recognised for his character Dame Edna Everage who blossomed from an Australian suburban housewife into a self-explained gigastar, died on Saturday. He was 89.

The Sydney Early morning Herald said Humphries died at St. Vincent’s Medical center in Sydney, wherever he experienced been treated for different health and fitness problems.

“He was completely himself until the really close, never ever getting rid of his amazing intellect, his distinctive wit and generosity of spirit,” his relatives reported in a assertion quoted by Australian media.

“His audiences were valuable to him, and he never took them for granted. Whilst he could be most effective remembered for his operate in theatre, he was a painter, creator, poet, and a collector and lover of art in all its forms.”

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese paid out tribute to Humphries in a tweet, contacting him a “fantastic wit, satirist, writer and an complete a person-of-sort”.

It was the character of Dame Edna who created Humphries renowned. With coiffed lilac hair, outsized diamante glasses and an outlandish wardrobe, the immediately recognizable Edna would joyfully greet audiences with her trademark “Hello Possums!”.

Describing her displays as a “monologue interrupted by strangers” and herself as blessed with “the ability to chuckle at the misfortune of other individuals,” Edna would warmly skewer celebrities and audience users alike.

“Tim, I could discuss to you and about you and powering your again for ages,” the character as soon as mentioned in standard manner as she was wrapping up a conversation with actor and comedian Tim Allen on one particular of her talk reveals.

Edna’s life as she informed it would usually go away stars in hysterics. She taught Mel Gibson drama, Julio Iglesias’ father was her touring gynecologist and she expended the coronavirus pandemic hiding out with her new lover, the father of Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, in Texas.

Born and elevated in Melbourne, John Barry Humphries was the son of a properly-to-do builder who persuaded his moms and dads to buy him an assortment of theatrical costumes to participate in gown up in.

Despatched to a conservative substantial college, he was explained by a pal as a “breathtaking misfit” who would transform his back again on university football matches to knit.

The development that would outline his profession came early: at 21, he was component of a travelling repertory organization when he arrived up with a character of a snobbish, inadvertently offensive housewife. In 1955, he stepped onstage for the 1st time as “Mrs. Norm Everage” from Moonee Ponds, admitting only many years afterwards that she was based mostly on his mom.

He produced a host of other Australian caricatures together with the repulsive drunk diplomat Les Patterson and the extra refined Sandy Stone, a decrepit rambling senior.

Humphries was also an actor, painter, writer and Dadaist performer of pranks.

In 1 this sort of prank, he would sneak a can of Heinz Russian Salad on a airplane, vacant it into a passenger sick bag and pretend to vomit into the bag mid-flight in advance of continuing to consume the contents in entrance of bewildered passengers and crew.

Bored with his dwelling town, Humphries moved to Britain in 1959, section of a wave of creative expatriates which include humorist Clive James and artist Brett Whiteley, showcasing the Australian voice: earthy and irreverent but superficially polite.

“Edna has this way of doing matters, it would seem to just take the curse off it,” Humphries informed Reuters in 1998. “I get no complaints.”

Despite the fact that a home identify in Britain and Australia, the U.S. market proved tough to crack irrespective of various attempts. That improved in 2000, when he was 66, and his “Dame Edna: The Royal Tour” on Broadway earned him a Tony award and part in the sitcom “Ally McBeal”.

He also voiced the character of Bruce the Shark in “Discovering Nemo”, wrote a satirical guidance column, as Edna, for Vainness Truthful, and curated a cabaret competition where by he rejected acts that included swearing – a decision he explained would stimulate creative imagination.

For several years Humphries struggled with alcoholism that destroyed his 1st marriage and just about his life, but he gave up drinking in the early 70s.

His many honors involved currently being awarded an Purchase of Australia in 1982, made a Commander of the British Empire in 2007 and featuring on Australian postage stamps.

But an outcry above a series of remarks that have been broadly observed as transphobic served prompt the Melbourne Worldwide Comedy Pageant to drop his title from its top rated award in 2019.

Humphries lived what he termed a “checkered, dramatic” personalized daily life, marrying 4 times. He is survived by his spouse, the actress Lizzie Spender, and his four young children.