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Humphries reveals dark truths about beloved Dame

Photo : NZPA

Dame Edna Everage is a megastar, advisor to the rich and famous and the Queen's best friend. But the man who knows this diva in diamantes best, satirist Barry Humphries, tells Rebecca Quilliam of NZPA a few dark secrets the housewife from suburban Melbourne thought had been hidden away forever.

"I used to think I invented her, but it turns out she thinks she invented me," Barry Humphries says.

Humphries is of course speaking of Dame Edna Everage, his most famous creation and the woman who he says ruined his life.

He is in New Zealand promoting his tell-all unauthorised biography, called Handling Edna, released tomorrow.

He told NZPA there were a few truths about Dame Edna that needed telling.

Dame Edna, for her part, is suing the Australian author.

"Her lawyers are getting very, very unpleasant," Humphries said.

Dame Edna has written her own autobiography, but it "had serious omissions", he said.

"She sees herself as a kind of a saint."

In fact the latest book reveals several scandalous aspects to the Dame's life, including an affair with crooner Frank Sinatra in the days before she gained mega-stardom.

She was at a concert and "when he sang Strangers in the Night, he seemed to be singing it just for me", she is quoted as saying in the book.

She was invited to his room afterwards and given a drink that may or may not have been spiked, and woke the next day in the singer's bed and apparently impregnated with her youngest son Kenny.

"I haven't heard from the Sinatra estate [about that part of the book]," Humphries said.

The book goes into detail of how Dame Edna "lost" her eldest child Lois when she was a baby. At the time, police blamed the disappearance on a giant koala.

The truth, however, is revealed at the end of the book.

Dame Edna also took umbrage at the sympathetic view Humphries had of her long-suffering bridesmaid Madge Allsop, he said.

"She considers herself the saviour of Madge."

Madge Allsop, one of Palmerston North's most famous former residents, died a few years ago aged 101 in a nursing home in South London.

"Madge was a very sweet woman. But she couldn't remember much by the time she died. She used to say to me, 'I had some wonderful times with Edna, I just wish I could remember them'," Humphries said.

In the book Humphries described Dame Edna several times as a "harpie", a "harridan" and able to deliver acerbic criticisms almost entirely disguised as a compliment.

"I wish I had never met Edna Everage," he wrote.

But since publication, Humphries said his feelings had "softened".

"I feel my life would not have been the same without her."

He admitted to always having a "reluctant affection" for Dame Edna.

"Other people always see the good side to Edna. The Queen won't hear a word against her," Humphries said.

"The Queen always said if Australia was to become a republic, Edna should be president."

However, Humphries did hold her responsible for creating a dysfunctional family when she abandoned them to pursue her own career.

"Her philosophy was to always put her family last," he said.

"She would say, 'They never thank you for putting yourself last'.

"[But] she is a woman with a healthy self-esteem and an invalid husband so she was bound to fall off the rails."

Humphries met Dame Edna 50 years ago as a budding actor, when she invited him to watch her in a church Passion Play, playing the part of Mary Magdalene, in suburban Moonee Ponds.

"A tall, angular young woman in a scarlet and biblically inauthentic muu-muu delivered her opening line, drawn no doubt from some Apocrypha of her own: 'Christ, your feet look awful. Let me give them a bit of TLC'," he wrote.

While Humphries carried on to try to kick start his career in London's West End, he received word from many sources of Dame Edna's continuing popularity back in Australia, much to his bewilderment.

His mother seemed to take particular delight in pointing out the "talentless housewife's" success.

Dame Edna herself predicted Humphries would come back to Australia with his "tail between his legs".

Humphries said it wasn't until he started writing the book that he realised the similarities between Dame Edna and his mother. "She [his mother] wouldn't have thought so though," he said.

Dame Edna continued to enjoy her meteoric rise in fame and was able to count among her friends movie stars, royalty and political heavyweights.

At the moment she is staying in Washington advising first lady Michelle Obama on interior decorating, Humphries said.

It had been a while since Humphries and Dame Edna performed in New Zealand, he said.

"I think I'll come back to New Zealand to do another show," he said.

"I think it's about time."