Viola

• His street performances around Melbourne in the early 1950s foreshadowed performance art in Australia.
• He was the most daring student prankster Melbourne University had ever known.
• Years later, academic Peter Conrad accurately described Humphries’ adolescence as a “one man modern movement”.
• It also gave him his first taste of the power of an audience to determine what happens in the theatre.

The birth of Edna

• Edna was a composite portrait of various women whose mannerisms had imprinted themselves in his brain as a boy, growing up in staid Camberwell.
• Wearing a massive hat sculpted to resemble the Sydney Opera House, Edna stopped the crowds at Royal Ascot that year.
• The image of her in that sumptuous creation (now in the Victoria and Albert Museum) launched Edna and Humphries around the world.

Conquering the world

• She skewered dozens of politicians, pop stars, singers and actors who graced the program every week.
• Her appearance with Jerry Hall singing Stand by your Man remains one of the most hilarious television moments of that time.
• Humphries’ success on British television in the 1980s and 1990s were among the major achievements of his career.

The early years

• Eric ran a flourishing building business (he might be called a developer nowadays) and Louisa was a homemaker.
• He loved dressing up and accompanying his mother on trips to the city or out for lunch with other ladies.
• At Melbourne Grammar, Humphries found the boys who excelled in sports rewarded and praised for their achievements.
• An interest in art or music was considered by the headmaster to be suspicious, a disappointment for Humphries, passionate about art.

A transformational artist

• With his mask off he was as witty as when he wore it.
• Manning Clark called him one of the “mythmakers and prophets of Australia […] enriching the culture which had been dominated by the straiteners”.
• Read more:
  Friday essay: Barry Humphries' humour is now history – that's the fate of topical, satirical comedy