| Variations of Name | Edna May Beazley | Dame Edna | Mrs Norm Everage | Mrs Norma Everage |
| Biography | Dame Edna Everage, often known simply as Dame Edna, is a character created and performed by Australian comedian Barry Humphries, known for her lilac-coloured or "wisteria hue" hair and cat eye glasses or "face furniture", her favourite flower, the gladiolus ("gladdies") and her boisterous greeting: "Hello, Possums!" As Dame Edna, Humphries has written several books including an autobiography, My Gorgeous Life, appeared in several films and hosted several television shows.
According to My Gorgeous Life, and statements Edna has made over the years, she was born Edna May Beazley in Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, with a sibling who would give birth to Barry McKenzie. Everage started her stage career in a sketch entitled "Olympic Hostess" in the revue Return Fare on 19 December 1955 as Mrs. Norm Everage, an "average Australian housewife" from Moonee Ponds, a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria.
Humphries has regularly updated Edna, originally a drab Melbourne housewife satirising Australian suburbia. Then he caused the Edna character to adopt an increasingly outlandish wardrobe after performances in London in the 1960s through which his Edna character grew in stature and popularity.
Following film appearances and an elevation to damehood in the 1970s, the character evolved to "Housewife and Superstar", then "Megastar" and finally "Gigastar". Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Dame Edna became increasingly known in North America after multiple stage and television appearances.
Edna describes her chat-shows as "an intimate conversation between two friends, one of whom is a lot more interesting than the other". The character has been used to satirise the cult of celebrity, class snobbery, and prudishness and is often used by Humphries to poke fun at the political leaders and fashions of the times. Her exuberant persona and scathing commentary on society and celebrity, as well as her habit of treating celebrities like ordinary people (on her television shows) and ordinary people like celebrities (in her stage shows) have become signatures.
Although Humphries freely states that Edna is a character he plays, Edna refers to Humphries as her "entrepreneur" or manager. Humphries and his staff of assistants and writers only refer to Edna as "she" and "her", never mixing the character with Humphries. It is this precision and richness of identity that gives Dame Edna her unique force as a character. |