Actor and comedian was best known as the monstrous Melbourne housewife and Sir Les Patterson
During an appearance on Desert Island Discs in 2009, Barry Humphries declared that he would be happy if his obituaries made no mention of Dame Edna Everage, the monstrous Melbourne housewife he had created half-a-century earlier. Some hope, said The Times. True, Dame Edna wasn’t his only alter ego: there was also Sir Les Patterson, the boorish Australian cultural attaché, with his filthy suits, nicotine-stained dentures and much discussed “trouser snake”, and the terminally dreary Sandy Stone. Nor were these satirical creations Humphries’ only achievements. He was also an accomplished writer and artist, and a bibliophile who counted John Betjeman among his friends. But the housewife superstar from Moonee Ponds – with her lilac bouffant hair, rhinestone cat-eye spectacles, outrageous frocks and “hello possums” greeting – had grown so famous, she’d been invited on to Desert Island Discs two decades before he was.
