But although he labored often throughout the ’60s, he used to be additionally within the fierce grip of alcoholism. Stays in psychiatric hospitals, he later mentioned, have been of no avail.
His nadir got here in 1970, when he woke up in a Melbourne gutter to search out himself beneath arrest.
With a physician’s lend a hand, Mr. Humphries turned into sober quickly later on; he didn’t take a drink for the remainder of his lifestyles. He dusted off Dame Edna and, bit by bit, de-dowdified her. By the past due ’70s, with superstar tradition in complete throttle, she had given him world renown and unremitting employment.
Edna didn’t seduce each and every critic. Reviewing her first New York degree display, the Off Broadway manufacturing “Housewife! Superstar!!,” in The New York Times in 1977, Richard Eder known as it “abysmal.”
Nor did Edna’s resolute loss of political correctness at all times stand her, or Mr. Humphries, in excellent stead. In February 2003, writing an recommendation column as Dame Edna in Vanity Fair, he responded to a reader’s question about whether or not to be informed Spanish.
“Who speaks it that you are really desperate to talk to?” Dame Edna’s characteristically caustic reaction learn. “The help? Your leaf blower? Study French or German, where there are at least a few books worth reading, or, if you’re American, try English.”
A public furor ensued, led by way of the Mexican-born actress Salma Hayek, who seemed at the mag’s quilt that month. Vanity Fair discontinued Dame Edna’s column now not lengthy later on.
In an interview with The Times in 2004, Mr. Humphries used to be unrepentant.
“The people I offended were minorities with no sense of humor, I fear,” he mentioned. “When you have to explain the nature of satire to somebody, you’re fighting a losing battle.”