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 suffer greatly from nerves. I have stage-fright badly, and it gets worse, but the stage is still my life.
I've decided the secret of parenting is benevolent neglect.
Now the point of comedy is not just looking funny, it's use of language. We have at our disposal a great language... and the imaginative, creative use of that language can be at the service of humour.
I denied this for many, many years and years... but you cannot help but not see a little of my mother in the character of Edna.
I really feel sorry for kids who aren't interested in history - recent history, either, because it is this that made us what we are.
I say things other people wish they could say. I don't pick on people - I empower them.
I think of myself as an actor. The duty of an actor is to be able to impersonate anything - a child, an old man, a tree, a chair, a woman.
I've never looked at my Facebook page or my website, because I'm fundamentally an amateur.
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!
In Australia, they really want to turn me into a religion. A religion! Can you imagine? The Church of Edna? Oh. I don't want to be over-revered.
People only watch my shows for me, and those shows have remained evergreen long after the guests are forgotten.
Peter Cook and Dudley Moore were friends and the last people I expected would predecease me. They were, in a sense, casualties of fame.
Political correctness means nothing to me. Nothing. It's the new Puritanism, darling. Preventing us from expressing ourselves.
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.