Barry Humphries
Barry Humphries
John Barry Humphries, AO, CBEis an Australian comedian, actor, satirist, artist, and author. He is best known for writing and playing his on-stage and television alter egos Dame Edna Everage and Sir Les Patterson. He is also 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...
NationalityAustralian
ProfessionVoice Actor
Date of Birth17 February 1934
CityMelbourne, Australia
CountryAustralia
I was born with a priceless gift, the ability to laugh at the misfortunes of others.
Sport is a loathsome and dangerous pursuit.
I've decided the secret of parenting is benevolent neglect.
I've turned from an ordinary Australian housewife into a gigastar, icon, talk-show host, swami, spin doctor... and now I'm a style guru!
Am I old-fashioned? I think I might be. I am a lucky woman, because I was born with a priceless gift... the ability to laugh at the misfortunes of others.
Never be afraid to laugh at yourself, after all, you could be missing out on the joke of the century.
Australia is an outdoor country. People only go inside to use the toilet. And that's only a recent development.
To live in Australia permanently is rather like going to a party and dancing all night with one's mother.
I think a lot of people think that we [comedians] are nerveless people in the theatre, that we don't feel that kind of terror which traditionally anyone who has to do any public speaking feels. It's worse for actors, because our livelihood depends on it.
New Zealand is a country of thirty thousand million sheep, three million of whom think they are human.
I have outlived most of my more athletic contemporaries who jogged, golfed and squashed themselves into coronary occlusion.
I drift along, thinking about the past a great deal. The past is so reliable, so delightful, and the best place to live. I end up there quite often, you know; it's very comfortable and dependable.
It's an old Aboriginal word meaning 'Let's get together and have fun'. They gave us the word because they had no further need for it.
Everyone had a Japanese maple, although after Pearl Harbor most of these were patriotically poisoned, ringbarked and extirpated.