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Edna Everage was born on February 17, 1934 in Kew, Melbourne, Victoria as John Barry Humphries. An Australian comedian, satarist and character actor, he is without a doubt, best known and loved (or not) for his on-stage and television persona of Dame Edna Everage. Humphries is also a film producer and script writer, star of London's West End musical theatre and award-winning writer and accomplished landscape painter.
His characters have brought him international renown, appearing in numerous films, stage productions and television shows, but none as much as "Edna Everage". "Edna" is beyond a shadow of doubt, one of the most enduring Australian comic characters ever, as well as possibly the longest-lived comedic characters ever conceived, appearing in the late 1950s. Edna has long since risen above her modest origins as a satire of Australian suburbia to become one of the most successful, best-known and best loved (or not) comedy characters of all time.
Humphries' first major break on the British stage came when he was cast in the role of the undertaker Mr Sowerberry for the original 1960 London stage production of Oliver! He recorded Sowerberry's feature number "That's Your Funeral" for the original London cast album (released on Deram) and reprised the role when the production moved to Broadway in 1963, where it became the first London stage musical to be transplanted to Broadway and receive the same critical and audience reception it had received in Britain. However, the song "That's Your Funeral" was omitted from the RCA Victor original Broadway cast album so Humphries is not heard at all on it. In 1967 he starred as Fagin in the Piccadilly Theatre's revival of Oliver! which featured a young Phil Collins as The Artful Dodger. In 1997 Barry reprised the role of Fagin in Cameron Mackintosh's award winning revival at the London Palladium.
In 1967 his friendship with Cook and Moore led to his first film role, a cameo as "Envy" in the hit film Bedazzled starring Cook and Moore with Eleanor Bron, and directed by Stanley Donen. The following year he appeared in The Bliss Of Mrs Blossom with Shirley MacLaine.
In the late '60s Humphries contributed to BBC-TV's popular The Late Show (which also featured Oz magazine editor Richard Neville) but Humphries found his true calling with his one-man satirical stage revues, in which he performed as Edna Everage and other character creations including Les Patterson and Sandy Stone. "A Nice Night's Entertainment" (1962) was the first such revue. It and "Excuse I: Another Nice Night's Entertainment" (1965) were only performed in Australia. In 1968 Humphries returned to Australia to tour his one-man revue Just A Show; this production transferred to London's Fortune Theatre in 1969. Humphries' gained considerable notoriety with "Just A Show". It polarized British critics but was successful enough to lead to a short-lived BBC television series The Barry Humphries Scandals, one of the precursors to the Monty Python series.
Dame Edna is also notable as one of the few satirical characters to make a successful transition from stage to TV without losing popularity in either genre, and her decades-long popularity shows no signs of waning. The talk show format provided a perfect outlet for Humphries' rapier wit and his legendary ability to ad-lib, and it enabled Edna to draw on a wide and appreciative pool of fans among fellow actors and comedians, with scores of top-rank stars lining up to be lampooned on her shows. As other Australian actors have begun to make a wider impression in international film and television, Edna has not hesitated to reveal that it was her mentorship which helped "kiddies" like "little Nicole Kidman" to achieve their early success.
Humphries' numerous television appearances in Australia, the UK and the USA include The Bunyip, a children's comedy for Channel 7 in Melbourne. In the UK he made two highly successful series of his comedy talk show The Dame Edna Experience for London Weekend Television. The series boasted a phalanx of superstar guests including Liza Minnelli, Sean Connery, Roger Moore, Charlton Heston and Jane Seymour.
These enormously popular programs have since been repeated worldwide and the special A Night On Mount Edna won Humphries the Golden Rose of Montreux in 1991. He wrote and starred in ABC-TV's The Life And Death Of Sandy Stone (1991), and presented the ABC social history series Barry Humphries' Flashbacks (1999).
His other television shows and one-off specials include Dame Edna's Neighbourhood Watch (1992), Dame Edna's Work Experience (1996), Dame Edna Kisses It Better (1997) and also Dame Edna's Hollywood (1991–92), a series of three chat-show specials filmed in the U.S. for the NBC and the Fox network. Like The Dame Edna Experience, these included an array of top celebrity guests such as Burt Reynolds, Cher, Bea Arthur, Kim Basinger and Barry Manilow. Edna's most recent television special was Dame Edna Live At The Palace in 2003. He also starred in the Kath and Kim telemovie Da Kath and Kim Code in late 2005.
In 2007, Humphries returned to the UK's ITV to host another comedy chat-show called The Dame Edna Treatment, a similar format to The Dame Edna Experience from 20 years earlier. The series once again boasted a collection of top celebrity guests such as Tim Allen, Mischa Barton, Sigourney Weaver, Debbie Harry, and Little Britain stars David Walliams and Matt Lucas.
In March 2008, Humphries joined the judging panel on the BBC talent show I'd Do Anything to find an unknown lead to play the part of Nancy in a West End revival of the musical Oliver!.