The pillar box red diamante-encrusted spectacles and bejewelled frocks could only belong to one person, possums - the late, great Dame Edna Everage. Around 250 items from Barry Humphries' personal Dame Edna collection will be auctioned by Christies on Thursday (February 13) - with each lot evoking colourful memories of the inimitable star. With an estimated worth of over £2 million, the collection also includes art work - such as Charles Conder’s painting ‘Sand dunes, Ambleteuse.’.
The most famous creation of comedian Barry Humphries, who died in 2023, aged 89, he once described Dame Edna to The Mirror, saying: “She’s the celebrity and I’m the puppetmaster.”. His alter ego, Edna, the abrasive, yet loveable Melbourne housewife, was renowned for her incredible wardrobe. Her OTT dresses and cats-eye butterfly winged glasses, which are expected to fetch over £1,000 a pair, are very different to Barry's original vision for the housewife as a rather drab-looking middle-aged woman simply called Edna Everage.
Thankfully, for her millions of fans, she instead evolved into the rumbustious lilac-haired character, who became a mainstay of British TV schedules in the eighties and nineties. Barry’s first and most enduring character creation, Edna also put him on the path to global stardom and enabled him to hide his stage fright. "I was too nervous to appear as myself,” he said "I disguised myself often, which I enjoy doing, because you can express things through another character satirically. Edna says the opposite of what I think - mostly.".
Yet, Edna’s flamboyance was a true reflection of Barry’s rather colourful life - especially his love life, which saw him marry four times. His marriage to first wife Brenda Wright at 21 lasted less than two years; he had two daughters Tessa and Emily with second wife Rosalin Tong; two sons, Oscar and Rupert, with his third wife Diane Millstead, and then married Elizabeth Spender, a former actress, his fourth and final wife, who he stayed with from 1990 until his 2023 death. They shared a terraced townhouse in South Hampstead for 40 years.
Born in Melbourne, Australia, on February 17 1934, the son of Louisa and prosperous builder Eric, even as a child Barry invented fictional characters, spending hours in his parents' back garden, dressing up and discovering a talent for entertaining which gave him a great release and helped him find new friends. Yet, after attending grammar school, he went on to study law, philosophy and fine arts at the University of Melbourne - but dropped out to pursue his acting dreams.
His first professional role, aged 21, was playing Duke Orsino in Twelfth Night and while touring Victoria with his theatre company, a meeting with the state’s mayoress inspired the character of Edna. Told by the theatre company director he was “naturally ridiculous,” he knew comedy was his calling and Edna became his mouthpiece - giving a satirical view of his experience growing up in Australian suburbia.
In 1955, Edna made her stage debut as a volunteer hostess for the Melbourne Olympics. Six feet tall, she wore distinctive glasses - although subtler than the outlandish specs fans grew to expect. And instead of the bouffant hairdo, she had an unremarkable bob. But she referenced her husband Norm, son Kenny, daughter Valmai and mother (who she’d condemned to Twilight Lodge, the maximum-security nursing home).
Later, in stage monologues, she mentioned her bridesmaid Madge, who years later would become her ever-dependable foil on several Dame Edna-fronted TV shows. Shortly after debuting Edna, Barry married Brenda Wright - divorcing her two years later and meeting and marrying Rosalind Tong, with whom he moved to London in 1959 - where he became our adopted national treasure. Contributing to satirical magazine Private Eye, he also auditioned for TV and theatre roles, getting a break in Oliver in the West End in 1962.
But he jokes that his “first starring role” came on a holiday afterwards in Cornwall, where he went to work on developing Edna - only to fall down a 50 metre slope onto rocks, while out hiking, and be airlifted to hospital with a broken arm and dislocated shoulder, all of which was caught on camera by a TV news crew. Despite some fortuitous breaks, the 60s, by his own admission, were something of a “boozy blur” for Barry, who later found sobriety, but described himself as "a dissolute, guilt-ridden, self-pitying boozer.".
In the grip of alcoholism, he started his day with a ‘grappling hook’ hangover concoction of brandy and port. But Edna blossomed and, on his 1968 Just A Show tour in Australia, she abandoned her drab look and came on stage in a glorious red Thai silk coat over a green dress. “Am I overdressed?” she asked, looking around. “No, I don’t think so.”. Confessing to have “brought upon myself some horrible events,” while drunk, after sobering up in 1970 - too late to save his marriage to Rosalind - he premiered his Les Patterson character, ironically an offensive, grotesque, yellow toothed drunk. Other creations include Sandy Stone - Australia's most boring man.
