Memories of Humphries wit and wisdom flow around world

Tributes and heartfelt memories have flowed from around the world following the death on Saturday of Barry Humphries.

Barry Humphries and Germaine Greer at the Oldie of the Year Awards in 2016. They didn’t see eye-to-eye politically and she didn’t always find his jokes funny.

Tributes and heartfelt memories have flowed from around the world following the death on Saturday of Barry Humphries – but the final bow from one of the great entertainers has also allowed a few orbits around planet mirth.

Humphries has been hailed as a comic genius – up there with Charlie Chaplin – who gave life to such irrepressible characters as Dame Edna Everage, Sir Les Patterson and Sandy Stone.

A protean creative force, he brought his talents to theatre, television, films, books, lyrics, poetry and landscape painting.

King Charles was “saddened” at the entertainer’s death, and had called Humphries in his hospital bed in the days before he died.

The then Prince Charles and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, visit Barry Humphries backstage following a 2013performance of Barry Humphries' Farewell Tour: Eat Pray Laugh at the London Palladium. The now Kin Charles IIII called Humphries in his hospital bed days before he died. Picture: David M. Benett/Getty Images

Anthony Albanese said Humphries was a “great wit, satirist, writer and an absolute one-of-kind”.

Rupert Murdoch, the executive chairman of News Corporation, said on the passing of his cherished friend: “In whatever guise, Barry was a genuine genius. His works, his creations, his spirit will echo across the generations and his friendship is eternal.”

Film director Bruce Beresford, a long-time friend, said Humphries had an enormous gift for comedy that was based on his sharp observations and genuine interest in other people.

“He was as funny as Oscar Wilde,” Beresford said. “I was constantly taken aback by his observations, which were funny and original and very perceptive about people and situations.”

Beresford said he had visited Humphries at Sydney’s St Vincent’s Hospital, where Humphries had received a phone call and emails from the King.

“Barry said, ‘Well, I always admired him. We always got on well and I really liked his company and enjoyed being with him’,” Beresford said.

“Barry was one of those people, he had great capacity for friendship. He was so interested in people.”

Germaine Greer said she first met Humphries in the 1950s when she was at university and Humphries cajoled her into helping him put together an art exhibition.

They had a complex relationship over many years; they didn’t see eye-to-eye politically and she didn’t always find his jokes funny. Her favourite Humphries character, she said, was Sandy Stone ­because there was sympathy and feeling for him.

“Dame Edna was basically a hymn of hatred to his mother,” Greer said. “I understand that, but it’s not really something you can hang out on the line. And poor old Edna, his mother that is, never got her own line. She never got back at him. He was probably the most unbearable child.”

Humphries’s manager of 20 years, Harley Medcalf, said Humphries had a preternatural ability in his theatre shows to read the room – an ability he saw fail only when Humphries gave a performance at a noisy, outdoor rock music festival in Denmark.

Harley Medcalf was Barry Humphries’ manager for 20 years. Picture: Chris Pavlich/The Australian

Medcalf was Humphries’ manager when Humphries was dropped from writing a column for Vanity Fair magazine, as Dame Edna, because of a perceived racist comment. At his next show in the US, there were protesters at the theatre.

“It absolutely delighted Barry,” Medcalf said. “How many people get protesters at the stage door? Barry was a rebel. He liked to say things that pushed people’s buttons.”

As well as attracting legions of fans, and his share of detractors, Humphries also became a subject for academic study.

University of Adelaide academic Anne Pender has written a biography of Humphries and studied his deployment of Australian vernacular: expressions such Barry McKenzie’s “technicolour yawn” and Dame Edna’s “Hello Possums!”

She said Humphries was a pioneer who upended the Australian theatre landscape.

“And it was liberating in Australia where the theatre scene was fairly staid at the time,” she said.  Humphries’s friends also remembered his generosity.

Richard Tognetti, artistic director of the Australian Chamber Orchestra, said Humphries had twice collaborated on concerts with the orchestra.

The ACO was due to give a concert in New York on Saturday evening and would perform a Cy Coleman song, I Walk a Little Faster, which Humphries had ­requested they play after his death.

“We have this opportunity to remember him and keep his spirit alive by performing this music ­tonight,” Tognetti said.

But Humphries, or rather Dame Edna, could not resist having the last word. She had written an obituary for Britain’s The Daily Telegraph, saying Humphries had put her on stage in order to “get cheap laughs at my expense and ridicule the great Australian way of life”.

“How the tables were turned!” she wrote. “I became the star and he merely a footnote to my spectacular career.”