LAST LAUGH
Inside Dame Edna star Barry Humphries’ colourful life – from horror battle with booze to outrageous pranks on royals
HE may have been born on the other side of the world, but Barry Humphries’ legendary comic creation Dame Edna Everage made him a national treasure in Britain.
It was announced today that the 89-year-old Australian-born comedian has died following complications after surgery, with tributes pouring in from fans and famous friends.
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Earlier this week, Barry showed he had not lost his sense of humour with a hilarious message shared from his hospital bedside via his publicist: “Barry would like to thank everybody for the support and best wishes he has received but he would like more and more."
The comedian, who once reduced the now King Charles to a fit of giggles during a performance as Edna at the Albert Hall, grew up in a middle-class suburb of Melbourne.
His parents Eric and Louisa, who nicknamed him “Sunny Sam”, were wealthy and hired a nanny called Edna who Barry adored.
After dropping out of university, he went on to join a theatre group but suffered so badly from stage fright it would make him physically sick. His first stage role was in Twelfth Night in 1955, with the director telling him: “You are naturally ridiculous.”
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Barry recalled: “So I realised I was in the wrong business, I should be a comic actor.”
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Barry created his famous alter ego Dame Edna inspired by the haughty and pretentious women he met while touring regional theatres.
Barry once said: "She’s the celebrity and I’m the puppet master. I was too nervous to appear as myself."
He added: "I disguised myself often, which I enjoy doing because you can express things through another character satirically. Edna says the opposite of what I think – mostly.
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"I don’t share any of her views, but somehow you come round to them. She’s adapted very easily to growing older – she’s a chameleon, ahead of us all!"
Aged 21, he married dancer Brenda Wright, which he admitted was “quite frankly – and it’s a cruel thing to say – to escape from my parents”.
In 1959, they moved to London and he spent his days auditioning for acting jobs, before going to do the night shift in a Wall's ice-cream factory in Acton, West London, in the raspberry ripple department.
He said: “My lodgings were cheap, for I had found a seedy basement flat next to the underground station, and I felt like a character in a book by Patrick Hamilton.”
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That same year, he made his London stage debut in The Demon Barger and went on to appear in several productions of Oliver!
Barry “used to love the atmosphere of English pubs” and became increasingly dependent on alcohol. His friends and family began to fear that his addiction might cost him his career or even his life.
It was one of the reasons for the collapse of his first marriage, which lasted a couple of years.
In 1970, he returned to Australia, where he almost died from his alcohol addiction. Aged 36, his parents admitted him to a hospital in Melbourne after a near-death experience with booze when he was found unconscious in a gutter.
Since then, he has abstained from alcohol. In 2016, he admitted: “I don’t think I’d be alive if I hadn’t.”
And speaking in 2018, he said: “You can move on and you forget really what a danger you have experienced.
“You’ve got out of the lion's den so don’t go back for your hat.”
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His one-man stage shows, usually built around Edna, became increasingly popular and tours of England and America garnered worldwide fame.
Barry had an eclectic circle of friends from Kylie Minogue - who Dame Edna claimed to have breastfed - to the late Poet Laureate Sir John Betjeman.
He charmed the Royal Family but once hung up on Princess Margaret thinking it was a prank call.
Barry recalled: “I was on stage in Treasure Island with Willie Rushton and Spike Milligan, and after the show we'd all repair to the bar.
“One evening the barman shouted out, 'Call for you, Barry. Says she's Princess Margaret.' So I went to the phone and the voice at the other end said, 'Hello, it's Princess Margaret. I have Sir John Betjeman here. We want you to come over now and have some supper with us.'
“I thought it was a hoax so I laughed and put the phone down. Well, it turned out it really had been Princess Margaret, which didn't bode well for our next encounter. I could tell by a certain froideur when I was presented to her in a line-up. It was clear she hadn't been best pleased.”
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He also once dropped his trousers in front of Lord Snowdon, which got him kicked out of a restaurant.
Barry said: “I had a habit when I'd taken a few drinks of dropping my trousers to shock people. Lord Snowdon and some friends were at another table. Stanley goaded me to perform my 'trick', so on my way back from the gents I allowed my trousers to descend to my ankles as I passed Snowdon's party.
“Back at my table the head waiter approached and told me I had to leave. Lord Snowdon, apparently, had not been amused. Two burly waiters lifted me from my chair and propelled me out into the street. I couldn't get back in because the door had been locked from the inside.”
His colourful career has been mirrored by a rollercoaster love life, which has seen him married four times.
The entertainer had two daughters with second wife, dancer Rosalind Tong, and two sons with his third, Australian artist Diane Millstead.
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He married fourth wife, Lizzie Spender, actress and daughter of the late poet Sir Stephen Spender, in 1990. The couple lived in a mansion flat in North London although they had been more recently spending time in Australia.
Speaking about why his fourth marriage endured, he said: “Oh, because I'm a bit smarter now. The truth is I'm not a very easy person to be married to, and for over ten years I had a serious alcoholic illness.
'If you're dependent on alcohol it's not only degrading but you only head in one direction – downwards. I moved on to whisky, which was like drinking petrol, and I was fond of Fernet Branca, a hangover drink that tasted ghastly so it was both a punishment and a cure.”
Not one for retirement, the comic veteran decided to try something new with a one-man show as himself, first touring Australia and then the UK last year.
He said in 2016: “I can’t understand how people have time to play card games or golf – which is really the anteroom of the cemetery. In my head I’m about 30."
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Asked whether he would be the type to go into a nursing home and play cribbage, he laughed: “I’d probably vandalise the place.
"I’ve no idea what the future holds. I’ll drop dead on stage or something like that."
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