Life in public: Dame Edna in 2012. Photo: AP. Everage has inspired and challenged, entertained and offended audiences for six decades. The lady was so attached to reality that when her memoir, My Wonderful Life, was published in the UK, it hit the non-fiction bestseller list.
Dame Edna must have been about 100 years old when she died on April 22, 2023. When she first emerged from Mooney Ponds in 1955, she was a young mother in her thirties. However, in «My Gorgeous Life» she admits that she was born to Gladys and Bruce Beasley at Wagga Wagga's Bethesda Hospital 1930. It is suspected that she took the advice of her friend Zsa Zsa Gabor who, if her stated date of birth is correct, was nine years old when she competed in the 1936 Miss Hungary pageant. Edna was proudly fourth-generation Australian.
Her great-grandmother and namesake, Edna Beasley, apparently was convicted of stealing a gladiolus from a flower shop in Covent Garden and sent not to the First Fleet, but in 1770 to Endeavor with Captain Cook (of course, Endeavor did not carry convicts… This is a delusion, or, as she would put it in her love for Mrs. Malaprop, a phallus.) History, apparently, was not one of the Lady's many strengths; but she always lived in the “moment”.
The inseparable person in her life was Barry Humphreys, who, surprisingly, died on the same day as the lady. In his unauthorized biography, The Treatment of Edna (2009), he recalls his first meeting with Edna in June 1955. By then, she was, in her own words, «an unhappy married woman.» She was more than slightly resentful that Norm Everage was much older than he led her to believe. A lean, ugly man with a khaki face, Norm will soon be locked in his room forever, tied to a disgusting car to deal with his clumsy prostate. They managed to give birth to four children, and subsequently Edna won first place in the Beautiful Mom contest. And this despite her invariable dictum: “I decided to put my family in last place. In the end, it will be better for them.”
The lady lived her life in such a public way that there is little to know. Her passion for «sharing» was irresistible. However, the disappearance in Wagga Wagga of her first child, Lois, in the clutches of a wild koala was not known until the 1990s. Years later, Edna learned that Lois was not actually mauled by a marsupial; for Edna, her fate was much worse — she survived and became a Roman Catholic nun. The parentage of her artistic son (he will grow up to be her couturier), Kenny was apparently the result of a date rape by Frank Sinatra at the Boulevard Hotel in Sydney.
Edna's potential became apparent to Humphreys when he attended a performance of The Passion at Holy Trinity Hall, Mooney Ponds in 1955. He saw Edna as a mauve Mary Magdalene opening the scene at the House of Simon the Leper with, “God, your legs look awful. Let me give them some TLC.» She began massaging Jesus' legs with the Vicks VapoRub and then took him off with her wisteria strands. Humphreys left at halftime despite the pleas of Edna's bridesmaid, Madge Alsop, «Are you staying for the Crucifixion?» He was under the impression that Edna would be cheerful «even if she only read from the telephone directory». She could be Eliza Doolittle for his Henry Higgins. The rest is his/her history.
Although physically Edna was more than strikingly similar to Humphreys' maternal aunt, she was inspired by the Humphreys' chatty daily help, Shores. Edna explained her early approach: “I felt like I had something to say to the audience, although I didn't know what it was. So I told them about myself. I described my own house and people listened and they said, «We know this house, we know this lava lamp, we know this picture on the wall, a Chinese girl with a green painted face.» I feel that the place where they lived was not such a boring place, after all, because I captured it in a work of art.”
America didn't «get» Edna at first. Performing off-Broadway in the late 1970s was criticized. Humphries vowed that Edna would return to Broadway, but only after the critic's death. She had to wait 25 years. So, in 2000, she won The Royal Tour and won a Tony Award. The defining moment was when she singled out a woman in the audience, whom she called Sunglasses, and repeatedly targeted her throughout the show before calling her on stage. The woman got up and slowly walked up — with a white cane. The frightened audience gasped; until Edna broke the silence: «Thank God she didn't bring her guide dog.» She also achieved success on television, playing the role of Claire Autumns, a client and then a secretary in the TV series Ally McBeal.
Dame Edna in Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie. Authors: David Appleby
Meanwhile, her home country demanded her. In 1972, she appeared as Aunt Edna with her nephew in The Adventures of Barry Mackenzie. In the closing moments of the Barry Mackenzie Holds On sequel, Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam called her a lady. Considering that he canceled the imperial honors upon taking office, this was a signal gesture. Whitlam allowed Dame Edna Everage to go out into the world. She never looked back.
Throughout the 1980s, her fame grew. Television appearances, notably ITV's «An Audience with… Dame Edna Everage», introduced the winning formula: Edna insulted the greatest celebrities in front of a live audience. Sean Connery and Charlton Heston were particular favourites. She told Jane Seymour. «Jane, you've married well three times. What is the secret of your success?» Then came The Dame Edna Experience, Dame Edna's Neighborhood Watch, Edna's Time, and Dame Edna's Treatment, with twists and turns, but with the same burning energy.
Her nondescript, eternally silent bridesmaid, Madge, became her backdrop. eternally inexpressive, motionless, constant presence on the stage. This double act continued almost until Madge's death at the age of 100.
Edna almost missed a beat when, in 1988, Norm died of a prostate gland and «testicular murmurs» that had haunted him for a long time. Without mourning, the widow Edna founded Friends of the Prostate. She, of course, was not there at the time of his death, and by the time she came to his bed, there was only a «dent» in his pillow.
Dame Edna is never seen on stage (or off stage) with another man from Barry's stable — red-faced, yellow-toothed, crimson-suited and highly gifted cultural ambassador Sir Les Patterson. The lady found him disgusting. His introduction for her on one show is «Laaaaze un Genelmen clap her; pat her as she deserves,” did nothing to endear him to her. She also shunned Sandy Stone, a suburban tragedy — perhaps he reminded her of the life she'd run away to and of the person her Norma could become? also played the cheerful Mrs. Crummles in the 2002 television production of Nicholas Nickleby. Of course Barry Humphreys was a worthy undertaker on stage, Mr. Sowerberry; and the famous Fagin, but Edna could have brought dozens of Dickensian roles to life. Her Mrs. Jellyby would be a show of strength.
Dame Edna (Barry Humphreys) with Madge Allsopp (Emily Perry) in 1989 Credit & Copyright: Brendan Monks/Mirrorpix/Getty Images
One can imagine that it would be difficult for Dame to maintain a staff, but, as she constantly told her fans, «they all adore me.» However, she once reported difficulties with her two Hispanic maids who joined her during an extended stay in the United States. According to her, she could not understand why Immaculata and Contracepcion were «fighting with a hammer and tongs.» And Edna's 2003 Vanity Fair speech about the plight of so many Hispanics in the United States provoked howls of protest, including from actress Salma Hayek.
Edna attributed this to professional jealousy — at first she was offered the role of Frida Kahlo, but she refused. “I said, ‘I don’t play the role of a woman with a mustache and a unibrow, and I don’t have same-sex relationships on screen’… I am not a racist. I love all races, especially whites. You know, I even like Roman Catholics.”
For a woman whose strength lay in vocals rather than literature, Dama also proved to be a popular author. In addition to «My Splendid Life» (which was a huge success in Germany under the title «Mein schrilles Leben»), she published «Dame Edna's Coffee Table Book: A Guide to the Gracious Life and the Wonderful Things of Life» (1976) and «Dame Edna's Bedside Companion» (1982). In her latest book, Lady Edna's Ednapaedia (2016), her favorite country is presented in 101 items, from aviation jelly to zinc cream.
In June 2013, during her Eat Tour, Pray, Laugh announced her retirement but, Characteristically, added: «I could never give up on what I'm doing, but this is definitely goodbye to touring. I'll be on TV and stuff like that. I will keep working until I fall.”
Dame Edna on the Eat, Pray, Laugh tour in 2013. Photo: David M. Bennett
So she lived for several years. Citing her manager Barry's treachery («the leech»), she returned home in September 2019 with her third My Wonderful Life farewell tour. She shared her good fortune: “My son has a husband; my daughter has a wife,» distancing himself from some of Humphreys' offhand remarks about gender reassignment being a fad. She also revealed that she has a new boyfriend, Thomas Markle, the unfortunate, reclusive, estranged father of the Duchess of Sussex. And, of course, she remained in touch with the Palace. They still needed her, possums.
Dama is survived by three children, Bruce, Valmai and Kenny, who she says disappointed her. Bruce's marriage to a Catholic was the biggest blow. Edna had a particularly difficult relationship with Valmai, an angry young woman who looked like a runaway from the Prisoner cast. In fact, at one point she was described as being in «shoplifting rehab», which must have proved useful as she replaced Madge's sweetheart on stage as the foil and slave Edna.
Kenny Everage was probably his mother's favorite. whether there was room for anyone but herself. He was a successful fashion designer, homeopathic practitioner and influencer, and regularly dressed his mother. At first, she was stunned by his companion Clifford Smale and bewildered by his one-time confession that he had «been locked in the closet too long and wanted to get out».
It was not for Edna the rapidly disappearing institution, the Shadow House, the maximum security nursing home she condemned her mother to. To the very end, in a wisteria wig, dressed like a bird of paradise, she kicked those absolutely amazing legs, pursed and twisted those lips, and spat out the most penetrating, original, outrageous truths ever uttered from any stage, podium or podium. .
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