The dying was confirmed by the hospital on 22 April, however no different particulars had been instantly offered. Mr Humphreys was admitted to hospital as a consequence of issues following hip surgical procedure.
Dame Edna’s character was so full that the character was higher recognized than her creator. With the revealed “autobiography” Edna’s world turned her personal wealthy backstory—together with reminiscences of a useless husband, Sir Norman Everage, and an toddler daughter taken by an “evil koala” however who survived to change into a nun. Mr. Humphreys found all of it.
However it was the sparkly, sassy and barely indulgent Dame Edna, not the quietly brooding Mr. Humphreys, who turned out to see and was greeted with the signature greeting: “Hey, Possums!”
The character is finest recognized to American audiences via outlandish speak exhibits starting with “The Dame Edna Expertise” within the late 1980s, the place Edna would host visitors resembling actor Charlton Heston, who was referred to as Chuck. Used to make enjoyable and tease. As soon as Dame Edna requested Douglas Fairbanks Jr. to get some groceries.
In one other present, “Dame Edna’s Hollywood” (1991–1993), she danced to “Act Naturally” performed by an enormous band in a two-minute interval earlier than comedian Robin Williams referred to as her a “kaleidoscope nightmare”. by Ringo Starr.
It was like being invited right into a seesaw world that oscillated between semi-normal and downright surreal, with Edna as a ringmaster, Doyne and the Prankster in stilettos and shimmery frocks. (Mr. Humphreys used female pronouns for Edna.) She referred to as herself “Gigastar”. It was a witty jab on the weird nature of celeb tradition — and its means to chop it right down to dimension — that made it its calling card.
And folks began loving it.
In 1999, Dame Edna debuted at Broadway’s Sales space Theater together with her present “Dame Edna: The Royal Tour,” by which she skewered everybody and the whole lot on her method to a Tony Award. Critic Richard Lamar wrote in The Washington Submit, “The present is so humorous it introduced on a buddy’s bronchial asthma (“She made me wheeze”).
She was there in 2002 to have a good time Queen Elizabeth II’s 50th yr on the throne.
“This is the Jubilee woman, Possums,” Mr Humphreys mentioned as Dame Edna, and was later heard to “hip, hip, hooray” whereas carrying a turquoise robe and two-inch dazzling mesh glasses. “And as I mentioned, ‘Hip, hip,'” Mr. Humphreys, in character because the Dame, later mentioned, “I felt tears coming. Not my tears, in fact. The Queen’s tears.”
On the 2006 Commonwealth Video games closing ceremony in Melbourne, Dame Edna performed a track over video hyperlink whereas tons of of “Commonwealth Dames” waved Edna’s signature flower, the gladiola, or “gladies”, as she referred to as them.
Dame Edna carried the highlight so properly that it was an occasion in itself when Mr. Humphreys stepped out of character.
“When does Dame Edna change into Dame Edna?” requested an interviewer on Australia’s “60 Minutes” in 2018. “When she holds…”
“Glasses on,” Mr. Humphreys interrupted.
“The glasses,” mentioned Mr. Humphreys. “Glasses make character.”
Perhaps solely Elton John has gone massive and daring in eyewear. Nonetheless, Dame Edna did not mess around with totally different kinds. It was at all times the cat’s eye in high-wattage spangles.
The thought was impressed by silent-film-era actress Stephanie Deste, an Australian within the 1920s recognized for her handmade eyeglass frames with diamond-studded feathers. The glasses turned a part of the Dame Edna character’s transition within the 1960s from mushy Melbourne housewife to what Mr Humphreys described as a “chanteuse lord-demon chaste.” (Mr. Humphreys by no means wore glasses in public.)
His spark for the character was tedium, he mentioned. In 1955, he joined a touring theater troupe performing “Twelfth Night time”. Throughout a visit between cities, Mr. Humphreys tried to ease the boredom of the highway with a rustic matron bit based mostly on the civic-minded ladies who would introduce the troupe’s present.
The character Mrs. Norm Common, like regular and common, takes form. At one level, Mr Humphreys mentioned he thought of turning the character right into a classmate, Zoe Caldwell, who would go on to Gained 4 Tony Awards. The director urges Mr. Humphreys to placed on a costume and be together with her.
Mrs Common debuted in a present at Melbourne College. The character later modified to housewife Edna Everage, borrowing the maiden title of Mr. Humphreys’ boyhood nanny.
“Properly, I used to be actually attempting to explain the Melbourne atmosphere on the time. You already know, it was a suffocating factor,” Mr. Humphreys mentioned within the “60 Minutes” interview.
Mr. Humphreys took the character to London. Understandably, the considerably bleak humor wasn’t pulling in audiences or critics. Step by step, Mr. Humphreys brightens Edna’s wardrobe and sharpens her wit, changing into extra suggestive and cracking down on society. Favourite targets had been the wealthy and proud and useless. The purpose: They’re silly and insecure similar to everybody else.
But Mr. Humphreys was nonetheless somewhat shy about his outfit. He as soon as went to a ladies’s boutique in London together with his customary cowl story: I am shopping for garments for my sister within the hospital and, properly, we’re the identical dimension. (Mr. Humphreys was over 6 ft tall.)
The clerk replied, “‘Oh, expensive don’t fret, all of the boys purchase their garments from us,'” he mentioned in an interview with the Age newspaper in Melbourne.
In 1972, Mr. Humphreys appeared as “Aunt Edna” within the movie “The Adventures of Barrie Mackenzie”. Within the 1974 sequel, “Barry McKenzie Holds His Personal”, the Australian Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam, makes a cameo to confer the title of Dame on Edna.
So started “Dame Edna Common”, and with it, the frilly saga of her life invented by Mr. Humphreys and recounted in “My Beautiful Life” (1989) and “Dealing with Edna”, a 2009 spoof by which Mr. Humphreys describes her as life as Edna’s “supervisor”.
It may be hazy at instances. In 2016, Mr Humphreys condemned feedback condemned as transphobic when he mentioned he agreed with feedback by feminist creator Germaine Greer mocking gender-affirmation surgical procedure for trans ladies.
A submit on Dame Edna’s social media, apparently moderated by Mr Humphreys, mentioned he was “dropping the plot” and “deserves not our disapproval however our pity.”
Mr Humphreys later instructed the Sunday Occasions Journal that his phrases had been “clumsily interpreted”.
He mentioned, “I do not assume I am match to be a bishop.” “I am actually an actor.”
Nonetheless, Mr. Humphreys was at all times flirting to cross some line. Employed as an recommendation columnist at Self-importance Honest, Dame Edna was requested by a reader about the necessity to be taught Spanish. “Who’s it that you just actually yearn to speak to?” Dame Edna replied. “Servant? Your leaf blower?
Actress Salma Hayek wrote a scathing letter to the journal, which later revealed a full-page apology and subsequently eliminated Dame Edna’s column.
Mr Humphreys mentioned: “If you have to clarify the sarcasm to somebody, you would possibly as properly depart it out.”
John Barry Humphreys was born on February 17, 1934 in Melbourne. His father was a profitable developer. His mom was a housewife.
He described feeling annoyed, at the same time as a boy, on the conformity and predictability of life in his leafy enclave. Edna reminded him. “I invented Edna as a result of I hated her,” Mr. Humphreys was quoted as saying in John Lahr’s 1991 ebook, “Dame Edna Everage and the Rise of Western Civilization”.
He had different alter egos: the politician Sir Les Patterson, the idiot and drooling via rotting tooth, and the suburban milieu Sandy Stone.
In 1960, Mr. Humphreys directed the musical “Oliver!” Within the unique West Finish manufacturing, Mr. Sowerberry performed the position of the Undertaker. and performed the identical position when it arrived on Broadway in 1963. He staged a one-man present in London in 1962 referred to as “A Good Night time’s Leisure”.
However as a consequence of heavy ingesting, he began drowning. He willingly checked himself into clinics, however he at all times went again to the bar. He described how he hit the underside: again in Melbourne and fell down a gutter in 1970. He calmed down and mentioned he by no means touched some other drink.
Mr. Humphreys discovered tasks outdoors of Dame Edna, together with because the voice of Bruce the shark in “Discovering Nemo” (2003). Edna was at all times within the wings.
She returned to Broadway in 2004 with “Dame Edna: Again with a Vengeance” and in 2010 with singer and pianist Michael Feinstein in “All About Me.”
Mr Humphreys additionally wrote about himself – underneath the guise of Dame Edna – within the memoirs “Extra Please” (1992) and “My Life as Me” (2002).
In a flip worthy of his shape-shifting profession, Mr. Humphreys appeared on the Fox present “Allie McBeal,” taking part in Dame Edna, a lawyer taking part in Dame Edna. The credit score for this goes to Dame Edna.
“I feel most individuals assume I am a weirdo,” Mr Humphries instructed Irish newspaper The Impartial in 2008, “and I feel I’m in some methods. However actually who I’m is only a Imaginative actor.”
Mr. Humphreys was married 4 instances. Three marriages resulted in divorce: Brenda Wright, then Rosalind Tong, and later Diane Milstead. He married Elizabeth Spender in 1990.
Survivors embrace his spouse, two daughters from his second marriage, two sons from his third marriage, and 10 grandchildren. Mr Humphreys lived in London and returned to Australia late final yr.
Australia has a statue of Dame Edna and a stamp and a highway. There was one final respect. In 2020, a The iridescent Australian soldier fly was named Opaluma edne. It was found that Dame Edna’s hair had a “gorgeous resemblance” to the colour of the fly.