John Barry Humphries, AO, CBE (born 17 February 1934, Kew, Melbourne, Victoria) is an Australian comedian, satirist and character actor perhaps best known for his on-stage and television alter egos Dame Edna Everage, a Melbourne housewife, and Sir Les Patterson, Australia's foul-mouthed cultural attaché to Britain. He is also a film producer and script writer, a star of London's West End musical theatre, an award-winning writer and an accomplished landscape painter. His characters, especially Edna Everage, have brought him international renown, and he has appeared in numerous films, stage productions and television shows. His Barry McKenzie comic strips about Australians in London appeared in Private Eye magazine with drawings by Nicholas Garland. The stories about "Bazza" (also Humphries' nickname) gave wide circulation to Australian slang, particularly jokes about drinking and its consequences, much of it invented by Humphries. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.