John Barry Humphries, AO, CBE is 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 most significant theatrical figure of our time … [but] the most significant comedian to emerge since Charlie Chaplin".
Humphries' characters have brought him international renown, and he has appeared in numerous films, stage productions, and television shows. Originally conceived as a dowdy Moonee Ponds housewife who caricatured Australian suburban complacency and insularity, Dame Edna Everage has evolved over four decades to become a satire of stardom – a gaudily dressed, acid-tongued, egomaniacal, internationally fêted Housewife "Gigastar"; Humphries' other major satirical character creation is the archetypal Australian bloke Barry McKenzie, who originated as the hero of a comic strip about Australians in London which was first published in Private Eye magazine. The stories about "Bazza" gave wide circulation to Australian slang, particularly jokes about drinking and its consequences , and the character went on to feature in two Australian films, in which he was portrayed by Barry Crocker.
Humphries' other satirical characters include the "priapic and inebriated cultural attaché" Sir Les Patterson, who has "continued to bring worldwide discredit upon Australian arts and culture, while contributing as much to the Australian vernacular as he has borrowed from it", gentle, grandfatherly "returned gentleman" Sandy Stone, iconoclastic 1960s underground film-maker Martin Agrippa, Paddington socialist academic Neil Singleton, sleazy trade union official Lance Boyle, high-pressure art salesman Morrie O'Connor, and failed tycoon Owen Steele.
“There is no more terrible fate for a comedian than to be taken seriously.”
My Life as Me: A Memoir (2002)
Clive James, 'Approximately in the Vicinity of Barry Humphries' http://www.clivejames.com/pieces/snakecharmers/barry-humphries
