She is best known as the first person to portray Madge Allsop, bridesmaid and companion to Barry Humphries' most popular and enduring comic character, Dame Edna Everage.
During the 1930s, Charles and Madeleine's like-named daughter maintained a high profile in Melbourne's social circles, with her name often recorded in the women's column of the daily newspapers as a guest at parties, balls and dances.
The younger Madeleine Orr was reported present, for example, at a 1934 junior auxiliary dance for the District Nurses' Society,[1] a 1935 charity ball aboard the troopship Duntroon[2] and a 1937 German-themed beer garden party.
Like many Australian actors of her generation, Orr intended to travel to the United Kingdom to further her professional experience and, after several proposed but postponed trips, finally arrived in early 1965[8] She spent more than seven months in London, living with Australian-born opera singer Sylvia Fisher and her husband Ubaldo Gardini in their Bayswater home.
[8] Orr's next major role was in the Australian premiere of the stage musical Robert and Elizabeth, which opened at the Princess Theatre, Melbourne, on 21 May 1966, and ran for six months.
Her next appearance on the musical stage was in an original Australian show entitled Razza-ma-tazz (and all that Jazz), co-written by John-Michael Howson, which was produced at the Southland Theatre in 1968.
Madeleine Orr first appeared as Dame Edna Everage's long-suffering bridesmaid and companion in the BBC TV series The Barry Humphries Show (1976).
At the record launch, Orr (again in the guise of Madge Allsop) arrived in the back of a panel van and then recited a poem that was purportedly written for the occasion by Dame Edna herself.
[13] A newspaper article describing the event was accompanied by a photograph of Dame Edna (in her punk outfit) with bridesmaid Madge, both straddling a huge motorcycle.