Barry Humphries

thumb|There is no more terrible fate for a comedian than to be taken seriously. John Barry Humphries, AC, CBE (17 February 1934 – 22 April 2023) was an Australian comedian, actor, satirist, artist and author. Quotes There is no more terrible fate for a comedian than to be taken seriously. My Life as Me: A Memoir (2002) Although there were many who did the dirty on him in the envious world of letters, Stephen* never let any of them live rent-free in his brain. My Life as Me: A Memoir And so I set these things down before the onset of the first of a thousand small physical degradations as, in a still-distant suburb, Death strides whistling towards me. My Life as Me: A Memoir (closing line) I was addicted to alcohol for about fifteen years. I think alcoholism is a disorder of the memory. You wake up groaning, saying, "Never again!" And by lunchtime you're on to your second Beaujolais or whisky... at the end of the sixties, I realised there was no future in it for me. I had done everything I could with alcohol except die. And after that, things took off in a wonderful way. It was like I'd been driving in a car with the handbrake on for years. Desert Island Discs interview, May 2009 About Barry Humphries He would have been a handful in any society. He is a misfit and fully conscious of it. The punctilio of his old-world manners, the dandified scrupulosity of his Savile Row suits, are compelled by an unsleeping awareness that he has no more business among ordinary human beings than a Venusian. Clive James "Approximately in the Vicinity of Barry Humphries", London Review of Books, 5:18 (6 October 1983). Reprinted in Reliable Essays: The Best of Clive James (London: Pan Macmillan/Picador, 2001/2002) External links Category:1934 births Category:2023 deaths Category:People from Melbourne Category:Actors from Australia Category:Comedians from Australia Category:Satirists from Australia Category:Memoirists from Australia Category:Laurence Olivier Award winners Category:University of Melbourne alumni Category:Commanders of the Order of the British Empire