It’s the usual way of appreciations to speak of somebody in the past tense. In that vein, we regretfully use the verb was to describe Barry Humphries, the brilliant and fertile Australian mind that was, sadly and forever, stilled last week (his death in a Sydney hospital, at age 89, was confirmed Saturday). But, in the same breath, what better tribute can we pay him than that his greatest creation, Dame Edna Everage, is forever in present tense? Like the indelible comic characters of Dickens or Twain, she has long since escaped her author and stands now pure and unsullied by time: an Everage for the ages. As Edna herself would say: “Spooky.”
Humphries’ obituaries have demarcated the journey she took to get here, from frumpy 1950s Melbourne hausfrau to 1980s glamazon, yet once she arrived, she seemed to have been waiting for us all along. She wanted us to know what celebrity looked like once it had been detached from looks or talent or pedigree, once it had become the product of sheer will. She was showing us, in short, our near future, when reality TV would reward otherwise unremarkable people simply for strutting and fretting their hour upon the stage. With her comically enlarged eyewear, Edna could see what was coming, and she knew that the only thing that separated her from them was being in on the joke.
But the joke was on her, too, for self-deception was hard-wired into her DNA from the start. Even now, it’s safe to say that when Dame Edna looks at herself in the mirror — the sequined dresses, the lavender Thatcher bouffant — she sees not just a beautiful, accomplished woman but, in her own endlessly iterated word, a megastar, equal if not superior to any celebrity who crosses her path. In a viral clip from 2013, she crashes the royal box of Prince Charles and Camilla and manages to convey, through the most economical of expressions, that the Windsors are the crashers. Her exit line? “They found me a better seat.”
Yet there is nothing arrogant about her. How could there be? Her hardscrabble Australian origins are ingrained in both her accent and her family of origin: husband Arthur (“an invalid, and an expensive one, too”), daughter Valmai (“into shoplifting and in a major way”), son Kenny (“a practicing homeopath”). And, brooding over her like a tiny Easter Island statue, Madge, her old bridesmaid, as wordless and existential as a Beckett character. No matter how high Edna climbs, they are ready to drag her back.
Of course, in her outré ensemble, she takes her place in a line of theatrical cross-dressing that stretches back to the Ancient Greeks. Yet, with her long and rather lovely legs and flat boyish chest, she also seems to float free of gender — or even, as the froglike puff of her neck suggests, species. Was Edna born of man and woman? Or was she some kind of exotic amphibian-reptile-bird, breeding in isolation in the Tasmanian Sea? Is that why she finds our soft points so easily?
For the truth is that, whether she’s hosting her own talk show or taking over somebody else’s, there is no more devastating insult comic. “You’ve been successfully married three times, darling,” she coos to actress Jane Seymour. “What would you say was the secret?” Sharon Osbourne, a judge on “The X Factor,” is congratulated for giving “so many opportunities to people with so little talent.” The uncomely Andrew Lloyd Webber, suggests Edna, might benefit from the Phantom lending him “a mask or two.” And pity the poor studio-audience member who has to hear “I’m trying to think of a word to describe what you’re wearing. Affordable.”
The surprise comes in seeing how cheerfully many of her victims accept their fate. Judi Dench, in a 2004 crossing, grows more convulsed with each gibe. (“I don’t think those close-ups in ‘The Lavender Ladies’ helped you, darling.”) And k.d. lang, when asked how long she’s known she’s Canadian, has to dab tears of laughter from her eyes before she can trust herself to reply. Like so many of Edna’s guests, they grasp that her narcissism frees her from malice, that she dispenses home truths the same way she might offer decorating tips.
They know, too, how fast she is on her feet. One of the great joys of catching her live, as I did some years ago, was seeing how speedily she absorbed every new datum of her surroundings (“Arlington, Alexandria,” she crooned, “such euphonious names”) before turning her omnivorous mind on the nearest bystanders. One of them, a tax attorney named Gordon, was coaxed onto stage for the purpose of publicly telephoning his wife.
The loss of Barry Humphries means there are some things we will never get to ask Edna about: ChatGPT, air fryers, the GOP war on drag queens. But it also means we can transport her wherever we need her. If, as someone is daily predicting, the world goes all to hell, I will steel my soul imagining Edna, in her stiletto heels and Kenny-designed frocks, climbing the nearest hill of ash and bone and calling out in a voice of impregnable cheer to all available possums.
Earth will be a less spooky place.
Louis Bayard’s novels include “The Pale Blue Eye” and “Jackie & Me.”