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Barry Humphries

Barry Humphries

Actor · 1934 – 2023 · Camberwell, Melbourne, Australia

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.

Movies24

  • Movie7.8

    Finding Nemo

    2003 · 20K votes

  • Movie7.4
  • Movie7.9

    Mary and Max

    2009 · 2.3K votes

  • Movie5.9
  • Movie7.1

    Immortal Beloved

    1994 · 379 votes

  • Movie5.4

    Blinky Bill the Movie

    2015 · 46 votes

  • Movie4.9

    Spice World

    1997 · 517 votes

  • Movie5.3
  • Movie6.8

    Nicholas Nickleby

    2002 · 204 votes

  • Movie6.3

    Napoleon

    1995 · 94 votes

  • Movie4.5
  • Movie4.8
  • Movie4.4
  • Movie5.0

    The Leading Man

    1996 · 25 votes

  • Movie6.2

    Bedazzled

    1967 · 180 votes

  • Movie6.8
  • Movie6.3
  • Movie5.9

    Shock Treatment

    1981 · 110 votes

  • Movie5.2

    Standing Up for Sunny

    2019 · 18 votes

  • Movie5.3
  • Movie6.7

    Not Quite Hollywood

    2008 · 100 votes

  • Movie6.9

    Da Kath & Kim Code

    2005 · 11 votes

  • Movie8.0
  • Movie6.6

    Jack Irish: Dead Point

    2014 · 42 votes

Series23

  • TV7.5
  • TV4.3

    The View

    1997 · 113 votes

  • TV6.9

    Saturday Night Live

    1975 · 527 votes

  • TV7.3
  • TV7.6

    Hollywood Squares

    1998 · 7 votes

  • TV7.2

    The Graham Norton Show

    2007 · 290 votes

  • TV5.4
  • TV4.4

    The One Show

    2006 · 31 votes

  • TV4.1

    Pebble Mill

    1991 · 5 votes

  • TV5.3

    Wogan

    1982 · 7 votes

  • TV7.9

    QI

    2003 · 289 votes

  • TV5.6

    The South Bank Show

    1978 · 7 votes

  • TV6.4

    The Tony Danza Show

    2004 · 8 votes

  • TV7.2

    Omnibus

    1967 · 9 votes

  • TV5.3

    An Audience with...

    1978 · 3 votes

  • TV
  • TV5.2

    The Wednesday Play

    1964 · 5 votes

  • TV6.5

    Ally McBeal

    1997 · 382 votes

  • TV7.0

    Boulevard Bio

    1991 · 2 votes

  • TV3.2

    Q&A

    2008 · 5 votes

  • TV7.9

    RTL Samstag Nacht

    1993 · 7 votes

  • TV6.1

    The Osbournes

    2002 · 59 votes

  • TV5.5