Died at 92
male
John Barry Humphries, AO, CBE (17 February 1934 - 22 April 2023) was an Australian comedian, satirist, dadaist, artist, author and character actor, perhaps best known for his on-stage and television alter egos Dame Edna Everage, a Melbourne housewife and "gigastar", and Sir Les Patterson, Australia's foul-mouthed cultural attaché to the Court of St. James's. He was a film producer and script writer, a star of London's West End musical theatre, an award-winning writer and an accomplished landscape painter. For his delivery of dadaist and absurdist humour to millions, biographer Anne Pender described Humphries in 2010 as not only the most significant theatrical figure of our time … [but] the most significant comedian to emerge since Charlie Chaplin. Humphries' characters, especially Dame Edna Everage, have brought him international renown, and he had appeared in numerous films, stage productions and television shows. Originally conceived as a dowdy Moonee Ponds housewife who caricatured Australian suburban complacency and insularity, Edna had evolved over four decades to become a satire of stardom, the gaudily dressed, acid-tongued, egomaniacal, internationally feted Housewife Gigastar, Dame Edna Everage. Humphries' other major satirical character creation was the archetypal Australian bloke Barry McKenzie, who originated as the hero of a comic strip about Australians in London (with drawings by Nicholas Garland) which was first published in Private Eye magazine. The stories about "Bazza" (Humphries' nickname, as well as an Australian term of endearment for the name Barry) gave wide circulation to Australian slang, particularly jokes about drinking and its consequences (much of which was invented by Humphries), and the character went on to feature in two Australian films, in which he was portrayed by Barry Crocker. Humphries' other satirical characters include the "priapic and inebriated cultural attaché" Sir Les Patterson, who has "continued to bring worldwide discredit upon Australian arts and culture, while contributing as much to the Australian vernacular as he has borrowed from it", gentle, grandfatherly "returned gentleman" Sandy Stone, iconoclastic 1960s underground film-maker Martin Agrippa, Paddington socialist academic Neil Singleton, sleazy trade union official Lance Boyle, high-pressure art salesman Morrie O'Connor and failed tycoon Owen Steele. Humphries died following complications from hip surgery at St Vincent's Hospital in Sydney on 22 April 2023.
Barry Humphries
In Memory Of
for In Memory Of in Thomas & Friends (Australian Dub)
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Thomas & Friends (originally known as Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends and later Thomas the Tank Engine and Thomas & Friends: Big World! Big Adventures!) is a British children's television series created by Reverend W. Awdry and Britt Allcroft that aired across 24 series between 1984 and 2021. Based on The Railway Series books by Awdry and later his son Christopher Awdry, it follows the adventures of Thomas, an anthropomorphised steam locomotive on the fictional North Western Railway on the Island of Sodor, and other engines including Edward, Henry, Gordon, and James. The series grew to include additional locomotives and other vehicles, all of which work for the Fat Controller who wants his trains to be "really useful engines". In the United States, it had its first broadcasting with the spin-off series Shining Time Station on PBS in 1989. The series also had a short-lived sister series called Tugs in 1989. The rights to the series are currently owned by HIT Entertainment (a subsidiary of Mattel), having acquired Gullane Entertainment in July 2002. Mattel has announced a 2D-animated reboot, Thomas & Friends: All Engines Go, which premiered on September 13, 2021 on Cartoon Network. Originally announced as new series of the original show,[5] it was later designated a new show altogether by Mattel.
