Barry McKenzie director Bruce Beresford recalls connection with Barry Humphries

Barry McKenzie director Bruce Beresford recalls his friendship and working relationship with Barry Humphries.

Movie director Bruce Beresford at his 2007 book launch at NSW Art Gallery with Barry Humphries.

I met Barry Humphries in 1963. I’d been in London only a couple of months, naively hoping to find work in the film industry. A friend had given me Barry’s number. He and I had never met though I’d seen him on stage at the Phillip St theatre in Sydney when I was in high school. I thought he was ­incredibly funny.

I hesitated to call as I couldn’t imagine why he’d be interested in meeting an itinerant nonentity. When I phoned, rather warily, Barry was friendly and suggested I come to his flat in Little Venice for lunch.

The flat was flooded and I had to walk through ankle-deep water once the front door was open.

Barry calmly explained that his new water-filled sofa – fashionable at that time – had sprung a leak.

Filmmaker Bruce Beresford had an odd first meeting with Barry Humphries. Picture: John Feder/The Australian.

Over the next year or so, we met occasionally over a common interest in obscure composers. From various art shows, I learnt a lot from Barry about equally obscure, if talented, painters. He admired many of the acknowledged masters, but had an extraordinary ability to discover beautiful works, invariably figurative, by minor or forgotten artists.

At this point, I don’t think he had done any major shows with Edna Everage but I saw him in Maggie May (a Lionel Bart musical that flopped) as well as give a stunning performance as Long John Silver in a Christmas production of Treasure Island.

He began writing the Barry McKenzie comic strip for the magazine Private Eye in 1964. The adventures of a gormless Australian in London were, I thought, basically quite believable, often based loosely on Barry’s own adventures. His ear for a huge variety of Australian slang was awesome. Someone in authority in Australia didn’t share my enthusiasm for the humour and the magazine was banned there for some years.

Until 1973, Barry was battling – a war he was losing – with alcohol. He usually, though not always, made it onstage in time for the various roles he was playing but his addiction didn’t endear him to West End theatre managements. After a fall over a cliff in Cornwall and a subsequent helicopter rescue, he was visited in hospital by some AA people. Where everyone else had failed, they succeeded. He stopped drinking in 1973 and never tasted alcohol again.

Sometime in 1971 I suggested that a feature film of the Barry McKenzie comic strip might be a good idea as I’d heard that there was a film fund now in Australia and we could apply to them for finance. Barry was hesitant at first, but spurred on by my desperate urge to direct a feature film, agreed.

He even gave me the first draft of a Barry McKenzie musical he’d written (never staged) so I could use some of it in the film script.

We enjoyed making Adventures of Barry McKenzie and the sequel, Barry McKenzie Holds His Own – both of them with the engaging Barry Crocker in the eponymous role and Barry H. playing a variety of roles in both films.

Bruce Beresford (left) with Barry Crocker, Barry Otto and Barry Humphries.

The Australian Film Commission was notably lacking in enthusiasm as it seemed to regard a lack of couth in the films as a drawback. Critics were similarly hostile – much to our surprise, as we considered the films to be good innocent fun and not tasteless anti-Australian diatribes. The public reaction, however, was enthusiastic. Now, more than 50 years later, the McKenzie movies can be seen regularly on one or more of the ubiquitous streaming services.

In the 25 years or so since the second McKenzie film, Barry and I were in constant touch, though there were often long gaps in our meetings as either I was making films in odd corners of the world or Barry was in the US or England doing wildly successful stage shows. I remember a number of meetings we managed to arrange in restaurants or hotels in London, Prague, New York, Paris, San Francisco – where the diners would be astounded by Barry’s penchant for purple trousers, a crimson coat, a hat and sometimes a Sherlock Holmes cloak.

On one occasion, in Los Angeles, his enthusiasm to visit an art show in Pasadena led to a suggestion we drive there immediately. About an hour later, in the car, Barry’s phone rang.

The stage manager of the Edna show he was doing at the huge downtown theatre was calling to remind Barry he was due onstage in 20 minutes.

I turned the car around on the freeway, a tricky and illegal man­oeuvre, and delivered him to the theatre with minutes to spare.

Barry Humphries with Bruce Beresford.

He dived into his Edna make up, walked onstage and delivered a hilarious performance.

I made only one more feature film with Barry – The Getting of Wisdom (1977), from the novel by Henry Handel Richardson, a drama in which he played the role of a headmaster. I thought he was as brilliant in a dramatic role as he was in comic roles.

Once again, working with him was as delightful as before; always punctual, unfailingly good-­humoured, word perfect and with his usual relaxed manner with the cast and film crew.

His memory always astounded me, not just his recall of details of books, music and paintings but also the lives and interests of the many people he met throughout his long and glorious career.