Golden Comedy: Barry Humphries Credit: Andrew Crowley
Although Barry Humphreys, who passed away at the age of 89, loved playing the consummate Australian both on and off stage, he was also everyone's favorite honorary Englishman. He first came to London in 1959, at the age of 25, and quickly became involved in the then thriving satirical industry, led by Peter Cook and based in Cook's Soho nightclub, The Establishment, where Humphreys performed to great acclaim. He had already achieved considerable comedy success in Melbourne and Sydney, where he also played the drifter Beckett Estragon in one of the first international productions of Waiting for Godot in 1957, but it was in London that Humphreys became a comedy legend and one of the finest actors. -famous people in the city in the sixties and later.
Although he returned to Australia, which he jokingly called «the most boring country in the world», for long periods of his life Britain was Humphreys' second home and, over time, his biggest source of comedic inspiration . .
While such indelible characters as Dame Edna Everage, Sir Les Patterson and his self-proclaimed alter ego, the deliberately unremarkable Sandy Stone, delighted international audiences for decades, Humphreys drew much of his humor from observing the vagaries of British life, and, of course, his people. His friends, acquaintances, and sometimes sworn enemies provided endless fuel for his genius and, like Zelig, he met several figures who defined the 20th century, although, Humphreys was Humphreys, they were never allowed to get away with leaning on your reputation.
1. Spike Milligan crashed his inflatable sofa
Former Goon Spike Milligan — the man who called the then Prince of Wales a «creepy little bitch» on national television — was a man whose humor was accompanied by a side-line of unpredictability, even danger, thanks to his bipolar disorder. Milligan and Humphreys first worked together on stage in the 1968 production of Treasure Island, in which Milligan played Ben Gunn and Humphreys played Long John Silver; the latter called working with one of his comedic characters «one of the strangest and most exciting experiences of my career.»
Milligan was a jovial and extremely talented man, but his wit often had a destructive and vicious streak. Once, when Humphreys was an aspiring comedian living in West London, he spent a large sum of money on a then-fashionable white inflatable sofa. When Milligan came to visit the next day, he glanced at the object, lit a cigarette, and then, with what Humphreys called a «triumphant expression,» stubbed out the cigarette on the couch, reducing it to a shriveled scrap. useless crap. Subsequently, Humphries joked: “From that day on, I knew that two comedians in a room were dangerous.”
Spike Milligan, Barry Humphries and William Rushton at the Mermaid Theater on Treasure Island in 1967. Photo: Central Press/Hulton Archive/Getty Images 2. He knew he shouldn't bother John Betjeman during Coronation Street
At a gala staged in 2006 to celebrate the centenary of one of Britain's most beloved poets, Sir John Betjeman, in the presence of then-Prince Charles, the presence of Humphreys, who drew up the bill, stuffed with «real» actors — everything from Bill Nighy to Joanna Lumley — it could seem unexpected and inappropriate. Yet Humphries' advantage over many others present was that he had been a close friend of Betjeman's during the poet's lifetime. The two men met in the late fifties and shared interests in everything from Victorian architecture to music hall routine; Humphreys was a frequent and grateful recipient of Betjeman's dinner bounty, saying, «Television makes me as rich as Croesus!»
Although the Poet Laureate once told a comedian that «to be popular is always to arouse distrust», both men achieved notable public success, winning the sympathy and trust of the British public, becoming much-loved names in the family. The only time Humphreys casually walked around his friend was when Betjeman watched Coronation Street in the evenings, a sacred ritual that could not be interrupted. As Humphreys later wrote, «This is a modern Dickens,» he exclaimed with a rapture that made some of his highly intelligent friends feel he was deceiving them. But that's not the case.»
3. He accidentally hung up on Princess Margaret 
In addition to his constant acquaintance with Prince Charles — a famous admirer of his character Les Patterson — Friendship Humphreys with Betjeman once put him in an unusual and almost compromising position.
Appearing on Treasure Island, Humphreys was drinking after a show with Milligan and their co-star Willie Rushton in a nearby pub when he was surprised when the bartender handed him a phone with the words «Call you Barry.» Says she's Princess Margaret. Then Humphreys heard a well-pronounced voice: “Hello, this is Princess Margaret. I have Sir John Betjeman here. We want you to come right now and have dinner with us. Assuming that Betjeman played a prank on him, Humphries laughed and hung up, but this was not a joke: as he later said: — up [that] it was clear that she was not very pleased.
He has had happier experience performing in front of her older sister at various Royal Variety Performances — usually, but not exclusively, as Dame Edna — and Humphreys' CBE award in 2007 can be taken as proof that the Queen — unlike Victoria — was really surprised by his antics.
4. He was too big for the Hobbit
Humphreys had never been a movie star and didn't want to be one. However, over the course of his career, he has appeared in everything from comic cameos in films such as Spice World, the Spice Girls, and the Peter Cook and Dudley Moore comedies Blinded by Faust, to more serious acting roles in Gary Oldman's biopic of Beethoven. «Immortal Beloved» in which he played the Austrian statesman von Metternich) and the Goblin King in Peter Jackson's The Hobbit.
Barry Humphreys in Spice Girls, Spice World Movie (1997) Courtesy of LMK
Humphries said of his appearance in the latter at a press conference with typical self-deprecation that «it was exhilarating to work on this film, and when you see my unusual interpretation, you understand why I immediately fell into the arms of [American weight loss guru] Jenny Craig and a little cosmetic surgery.» He also had a typically irreverent attitude towards Jackson's obsession with special effects throughout his career, saying of his CGI performance, «I always thought motion capture was what you do when you take a sample from a doctor.» .
5. He talked nonsense with Salvador Dali — and resisted his wife
Humphreys' son Oscar is a former editor of the art magazine Apollo and a well-known curator, and he inherited his love for art from his father, who exhibited his own work and knew many of the greatest artists of the last century.
Was it painted by David Hockney in 2015, an experience he described as «quite awe-inspiring», especially as «he rarely spoke when he painted…sometimes he gave a brief grunt of satisfaction or looked at his subject with a smile.» who told me everything was going well”—or avoiding the advances of Salvador Dali’s wife Gala (“the predatory creature that attached to me”) in New York in the sixties, Humphreys maintained a charming expression of bewilderment when it came to the strangeness of the art world.
Painting by David Hockney of Barry Humphreys Credit: Richard Schmidt
In the case of Dali, with whom he invented a nonsensical language loosely based on an Australian Aboriginal language, in which two men had a serious conversation while they had it, by dry recollection Humphreys, «a few adventures,» had an even stranger aspect. their friendship. “He had no idea who I was,” Humphreys recalled last year.
6. He didn't look like his character Sir Les Patterson at all… really
Humphreys always liked to mix the high-intellect and the low-intellect, often at the same time. A well-known fan of the Dada art movement and bibliophile with a library of over 30,000 books, he also created the decidedly moronic Les Patterson, who—intentionally—was one of the most repulsive figures in comedy, the obese, pompous, and depraved debauchee who initially horrified Humphreys' audiences. as they sincerely believed that he was the Australian Cultural Attaché (not to mention the Minister of Internal Drainage and Rodent Control). As Humphreys said, “I enjoy playing Les more than any other character because it brings out my inner vulgarity. It releases my repressed obscenity.»
'This brings out my inner vulgarity': Barry Humphreys as Sir Les Patterson's alter ego. Credit & Copyright: Mirrorpix.
And yet, its creator could not be further from the boorish, buffoonish image that he portrayed on stage. Recently married to poet Stephen Spender's daughter Lizzie, he moved with ease in British and American artistic and literary circles, alternately charming and (politely) resenting the company he kept. He wrote a poem for his close friend and compatriot Clive James, which he proudly recited (twice) in an interview: «Poor old Clive/Still alive./We know he's not dead/Because he keeps telling us/About all the books which he read.
7. He had an unusual friendship with Jeffrey Archer
Of all the many friends in Humphreys' rich address book, one of the strangest on paper was Lord Archer: best-selling writer, conservative peer, and convicted perjurer. Archer is more like the man Humphreys made a career of ridicule rather than collaboration with. However, they were friends for almost half a century, and Archer even financed Humphreys' 1990s musical Edna — The Spectacle Returns.
Humphreys later returned the favor by visiting the disgraced politician after his imprisonment and continued to interact with him both personally and professionally, most recently appearing on Archer's Unputdownable podcast in 2021. Humphreys spoke warmly of his restless, inscrutable colleague, saying, “Jeffrey was such a good friend. There is something quite attractive about him that is hard to describe. I always say that we all invent ourselves. It's just that Jeffrey has more problems. It's disposable.» However, it was in the character of Dame Edna that Humphreys most memorablely toasted his friend and collaborator, saying, «If you can't laugh at yourself, you may have missed the joke of the century.»
Dame Edna with Geoffrey Archer Credit & Copyright: Stuart Mark 8. He was controversial to the very end
Humphreys first played his most famous alter ego, Dame Edna Everage, in Australia in the fifties, and honed the character to perfection in The Establishment the following decade (although Bamber Gascoigne, then drama critic on The Spectator, disagreed and named its effect is «soothing», which Dame Edna later called «syphilitic».)
Perhaps Dame Edna's strangest appearance came in the 1972 comedy The Adventures of Barry Mackenzie, co-written by Humphreys, about the lewd exploits of a young Australian in England: «Aunt Edna», as the character was called, was played almost naturalistically, in stark contrast to her usual high-profile character («Hi, possums!») and the absurdity of the rest of the movie. Although Humphreys pioneered comic cross-dressing decades before RuPaul's Drag Race and his ilk — though much indebted to Arthur Lucan's music hall character Old Mother Riley — he flirted with outrage throughout his career before finally going bust in 2016. . calling the sex reassignment surgery «self-mutilating» and Caitlyn Jenner «a publicity-seeking sham».
He claimed to be speaking for his character and not for himself, but as a result of the hype, the award named after him at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, «Barry» was changed to a generally less memorable award Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Humphreys remained unrepentant for the rest of his life, saying in 2018, «How many different toilets can you have?» and calling transgenderism «fashion».
Свежие комментарии