His other satirical characters included the "priapic and inebriated cultural attaché" Sir Les Patterson, who "continued to bring worldwide discredit upon Australian arts and culture, while contributing as much to the Australian vernacular as he has borrowed from it"; [citation needed] 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; failed tycoon Owen Steele; and archetypal Australian bloke Barry McKenzie.

His father was well-to-do, and Barry grew up in a "clean, tasteful, and modern suburban home" on Christowel Street, Camberwell,[1] then one of Melbourne's new "garden suburbs".

As his father's building business prospered, Humphries was sent to Melbourne Grammar School, where he spurned sport, detested mathematics, shirked cadets "on the basis of conscientious objection" and matriculated with strong results in English and art.

[11][12] In his award-winning autobiography, More Please (1992), Humphries related that he had created a character similar to Edna in the back of a bus while touring country Victoria with Twelfth Night with the MTC at the age of 20.

Although he had originally assumed Edna's debut Melbourne appearance would be a one-off, Humphries decided to revive "Olympic Hostess" for Phillip Street and its success helped to launch what became a fifty-year career for the self-proclaimed "Housewife Superstar" (later Megastar, then Gigastar).

[17] In the same year, Humphries made his first commercial recording, the EP Wild Life in Suburbia, which featured liner notes by his friend, the Modernist architect and writer Robin Boyd.

He became a friend of leading members of the British comedy scene including Dudley Moore, Peter Cook, Alan Bennett, Jonathan Miller, Spike Milligan, Willie Rushton and fellow Australian expatriate comedian-actors John Bluthal and Dick Bentley.

[19] Humphries contributed to the satirical magazine Private Eye, of which Cook was publisher, his best-known work being the cartoon strip The Wonderful World of Barry McKenzie.

At one time, he was invited to play the leading role of Captain Martin Bules in The Bedsitting Room, which had already opened successfully at the Mermaid Theatre and was transferring to the West End.

It was filmed in England and Australia with an all-star cast including Spike Milligan, Peter Cook, Dennis Price, Dick Bentley, Willie Rushton, Julie Covington, Clive James and broadcaster Joan Bakewell.

His credits included Bedazzled (1967), the UK sex comedy Percy's Progress (1974), David Baker's The Great Macarthy (1975), and Bruce Beresford's Barry McKenzie Holds His Own (1974), in which Edna was made a dame by then Australian prime minister Gough Whitlam.

Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, followed in 1981 by his part as the fake-blind TV-show host Bert Schnick in Shock Treatment, the sequel to The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

[41][42] In 2016, he appeared in a dual role in Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie as Charlie, a rich former lover of Patsy Stone, and in a nonspeaking cameo as Dame Edna.

[43] Humphries's forte was always his one-man satirical stage revues, in which he appeared as Edna Everage and other character creations, most commonly Les Patterson and Sandy Stone.

[44] Humphries's one-man shows, which were typically two and a half hours long, alternated satirical monologues and musical numbers and consisted of entirely original material, laced with ad-libbing, improvisation and audience participation segments.

Although he eventually gained worldwide popularity, he encountered stiff resistance in the early years of his career: his first London one-man show, A Nice Night's Entertainment (1962), received scathing reviews.

The series featured a variety of famous guests, including Liza Minnelli, Sean Connery, Roger Moore, Dusty Springfield, Charlton Heston, Lauren Bacall, and Jane Seymour.

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 (1998).

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.

The series once again had a collection of high-profile celebrity guests, such as Tim Allen, Mischa Barton, Sigourney Weaver, Debbie Harry, and Shirley Bassey.

[60] 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!.

[54] Dame Edna's new-found success in the United States led to many media opportunities, including a semi-regular role in the hit TV series Ally McBeal.

Dan Ilic of Time Out Sydney stated that Humphries delivered "a show that almost feels like a blueprint for the foundations for the last fifty years of Australian comedy".

Her outlandish spectacles were inspired by the glasses worn by the Melbourne eccentric, actor and dancer Stephanie Deste, as were many other aspects of Dame Edna's personality.

[80][81][82][83] As the character evolved, Edna's unseen family became an integral part of the satire, particularly the travails of her disabled husband Norm, who had an almost lifelong onslaught of an unspecified prostate ailment.

Her daughter Valmai and her gay hairdresser son Kenny became intrinsic elements of the act, as did her long-suffering best friend and New Zealand bridesmaid, Madge Allsop.

As other Australian actors have begun to make a wider impression internationally, Edna did not hesitate to reveal that it was her mentorship that helped "kiddies" like "little Nicole Kidman" to achieve their early success.

In December 1987, Humphries appeared on the BBC Radio 4 program Today in a recorded interview in which he simultaneously played the characters of both Dame Edna and Sir Les.

[99][100] Some of the more arcane and rare items in this collection include the telephone book of Oscar Wilde, Memoirs of a Public Baby by Philip O'Connor, an autographed copy of Humdrum by Harold Acton, the complete works of Wilfred Childe and several volumes of the pre-war surrealist poetry of Herbert Read.

[111] Following a fall in February of the same year,[34] Humphries died after complications from hip surgery at St Vincent's Hospital in Darlinghurst, Sydney, on 22 April 2023, at the age of 89.