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silverfoxesclub-digest In this issue:
-Dame Edna
Subject: Dame Edna
Ben Boxer says: If you have never seen
Dame Edna, you're missing something.
I hate "talk shows," but love hers.
Unfortunately, it is rarely seen in the
U.S.A. She is certainly the most original
and entertaining of that dreary, egotistical
lot known as "talk show hosts." She is
the world's most talented, and maybe the
only (except for the late Benny Hill in drag)
female(?) silverfox.
Dame Edna
Upstairs at Sardi's, New York's
fabled theatre restaurant on 44th
Street and Broadway.
Dame Edna Everage, housewife
superstar, is giving a press
conference to celebrate the awards
she has received for her one-woman
show and to announce the national
tour that will take her the length and
breadth of America.
"I am doing this against the advice of
the man whose counsel I value above
that of any other . . . my
gynaecologist. He is an adorable
person. He happens to be Julio
Iglesias's father. Of course, he is
getting on in years. His hand shakes
terribly . . . not necessarily a bad
thing in a gynaecologist."
Dame Edna is incorrigible,
outrageous, adored. For nine months
in New York she has played to
capacity houses; she is the darling of
the American television chat-show
circuit; hardened hacks (who must
know that she is, in truth, a
66-year-old man dressed up in a
fright frock) applaud her as she
arrives for the press conference and
line up to be photographed with her
as she leaves.
Dame Edna, la dame au gladioli, is an
improbable creature: more than 6ft
tall, with no bust to speak of, lilac
hair ("I've reverted to my natural
colour, possums"), double chins
("I've succumbed to plastic surgery
-these chins used to be Elizabeth
Taylor's love handles"), more
pantomime dame than glamour puss -
except for her legs. Dame Edna has
incredibly slim, shapely, sexy legs.
And dainty feet. I am sitting in the
front row, right by them. She catches
my eye. She stares at me beadily. It
is quite alarming. "I know you," she
rasps. "Tomorrow you're having
lunch with my manager, Barry
Humphries, aren't you? Take care. It
grieves me to say it, but the man
cannot be trusted."
SCENE 2
Twenty-four hours later, on East
54th Street, the spectacular
penthouse apartment of Gillian
Lynne, choreographer of Cats, Barry
Humphries' New York base.
The view over the East River is
breathtaking. Barry, soft-spoken,
elegantly suited, a little weary but
effortlessly urbane, is at the picture
window pointing out the local
landmarks. "Henry Kissinger lives
over there. That's his bathroom. On
a clear day you can see him
flossing."
Has Kissinger been to see the show?
Barry narrows his eyes and purrs.
"They've all been. Spielberg,
Sondheim, Whoopi Goldberg. This
time we're a hit. It's very nice." Last
time was 1977. Edna had wowed
London, but was a flop off
Broadway. "An Adelaide newspaper
carried a banner headline recording
the disaster: 'BAZZA GOES DOWN
IN NEW YORK LIKE A JAFFA
DOWN THE LIFTWELL OF THE
EMPIRE STATE'. For its
imaginative ingenuity, and as a
classic illustration of Australian
Schadenfreude, I was almost proud
to have inspired it."
Why does he think America has
taken Edna to its heart this time
around? "They're no longer so
worried about cross-dressing. It used
to disturb something profound in the
American nature. It was almost
pathological. Now I'm no longer
preaching to the unconverted.
They've seen Edna on TV. And I'm
following the success of Benny Hill
and Monty Python and Absolutely
Fabulous. A lot of Americans think
I'm British."
Humphries has a British wife, a
London home, teenage sons at school
at Stowe and Marlborough, but
remains quintessentially Australian.
He was born in a genteel suburb of
Melbourne in February 1934. His
father was a house-builder, his
mother a housewife: they brought
him up in the kind of respectable,
aspirational milieu he has spent much
of his adult life mocking. "John
Betjeman understood suburbia. He
said Wembley was Australia and
Wimbledon was New Zealand - even
though he'd never been to New
Zealand."
He tells the story of taking his baby
son Oscar to meet his mother for the
first time, in the mid-1980s. "When
we arrived she was listening to a
phone-in on the radio. By a macabre
coincidence, the topic was me. The
ladies of Melbourne were ringing in
to agree with the host of the show
that 'Barry Humphries is selling
Australia short overseas'. My
mother looked up and said
mournfully, 'You see Barry, that's
what they think of you.'
"I went into another room, found the
phone book and called the radio
station. 'This is Dame Edna here. Put
me on air.' They did, right away.
'Hello,' I said, 'I just want to say I
adore your show, especially today.
How I agree with all those wonderful
women who are ringing you up. I
know Barry Humphries better than
anyone and he is dragging Australia
through the mud as often as he can
for base financial gain. The millions
who laugh at his shows should be
ashamed of themselves - and I
happen to know that his mother
agrees with me!'
"Trembling, I put down the phone
and returned to the other room. My
mother switched off the radio and
shot me a dry smile. Then, as though
nothing had happened, she held out
her arms towards Oscar and said,
'Don't just stand there, I want to see
my grandson.' She died soon after."
SCENE 3
1.30pm at Gustavino's, Terence
Conran's swish, spacious, clattery
Upper East Side eaterie. Barry eats
lightly and drinks mineral water. He
hasn't touched alcohol for many
years. He drank to excess from an
early age. Memorably, on his 21st
birthday, a surfeit of rum and
champagne caused him to crash his
mother's car.
"I woke the next day with a terrible
feeling of guilt, shame and impending
doom. Thereafter, whenever I drank
I always felt exactly the same way,
although strange to say it never
discouraged me. I always believed it
would be different next time, that I
would conquer the problem and
eliminate the side-effects."
In time, Edna would become the
inebriate woman, taking "fortifying
nips" before the show, and Barry
turned, in his own phrase, into "a
dissolute, guilt-ridden, self-obsessed
boozer." Not any more.
Today he strikes me as wonderfully
sane, my kind of Renaissance man:
he wears his learning lightly and he's
ready to send himself up. He writes
(a new volume of memoirs is on the
way), he collects books, he paints
landscapes in oils, he's an authority
on surrealism. He goes to church. He
shared with his friend (and
alternative father figure) John
Betjeman a love of the lost worlds of
variety and music hall.
"As a child I listened to comics on
the wireless such as Arthur Askey
and Richard Murdoch, Sid Field, Mr
Pastry, Jack Hulbert and Cicely
Courtneidge. Cyril Fletcher, with his
Odd Odes, was a particular
favourite. I feel part of that
wonderful fellowship of the music
hall." In his own way, Barry has been
"working the halls" for 40 years. He
likes to talk about his craft.
"The first essential, of course, is that
the audience likes you. You don't
have to be likeable as a person, but
the audience must warm to your
persona. Terry Thomas wasn't very
nice, but audiences liked him. Jimmy
Edwards was a difficult man, but the
listeners loved him. In New York
they like Edna. In Berlin they like
Edna."
I interrupt: "Is that why all those
Germans turned up at the press
conference?"
"Yes. She's big in Germany. Her
theme tune Edna uber Deutschland
has an encouraging march tempo."
He skewers some onions
contentedly. "Next, you've got to
persuade the audience to play the
game with you, enter the conspiracy,
accept your character completely
and without question. You do that by
creating a world that, however
absurd, is utterly believable. Detail is
important. The audience enjoys
seeing life through your eyes, being
released for an hour or two from
their own point of view. At all times
you've got to maintain a mesmeric
hold over them. If your concentration
slips for a moment, they're aware
that you've loosened the rein.
"You've got to be fearless. A fearful
comic isn't going to be funny and the
audience can smell fear instantly. At
every performance you are walking
a tightrope - without a safety net.
Finally, whatever you do, make it
memorable. Give them something
they won't forget."
Supplying the unforgettable has long
been a Humphries trademark. As the
camomile tea is served, I ask him
about the street theatre that was
once his speciality. "You mean the
Heinz Russian Salad routine?"
"Did you really do it?"
"Oh yes. Surreptitiously spilt and
splashed in large quantities on the
pavement, tinned Russian salad -
consisting largely of diced potato in
mayonnaise with a few peas and
carrot chips thrown in - closely
resembles human vomit. While
disgusted pedestrians would give it a
wide berth, I'd kneel down by one of
the larger puddles, then produce a
spoon from my top pocket and enjoy
several mouthfuls."
"Why did you do it?"
"To provoke, to shock, to show off."
He chuckles happily at the memory.
At lunch the real surprise is to find
how easy it is to talk to him about
Dame Edna. Reading old cuttings, I
had gained the impression that he
would only talk about her as though
she were a real person. Not so. She's
a character, an act honed and
developed over 44 years.
She evolved in the back of a bus.
When Barry dropped out of
university and started out as a young
actor, in 1956, age 22, he played
Orsino in a touring production of
Twelfth Night. "It was mostly
one-night stands on a variety of
stages, in town halls, cinemas,
assorted institutes. After the
performance there was always a
bun-fight provided by the local
ladies, with an inevitable speech
from one of them thanking us for
bringing culture to the township.
As the tour progressed and we
moved around Victoria from town to
town, in the back of the bus, to
entertain my fellow actors I offered
my own fanciful parody of these good
women. Later I revived the
character for our end-of-season
revue and decided to name her after
my own nanny, who was called
Edna."
"What happened to the real Edna?"
"I don't know. She was wonderful,
but she was dismissed for some
reason. I don't know why. I really
don't. My mother never told me."
SCENE 4
4pm. Back in the apartment building,
we are travelling up in the lift. Barry
has his gimlet eye fixed on a fellow
passenger's high heels. "You know, I
could no more walk about in high
heels than fly to the moon. Edna does
things I could never do. Sometimes I
have no idea - literally no idea - what
she is going to say next."
Humphries has created a series of
characters in his time: Edna; the
gloriously gross cultural attache Sir
Les Patterson; the wistful Sandy
Stone (a Betjeman favourite).
Currently he is working on a new
one: a grasping Australian lawyer. "I
think there's potential there, don't
you?"
Would he like to do more straight
theatre? "Yes, I might well go legit
again. There's plenty of time. I could
have a go at Malvolio, I suppose, and
there are some roles in Ibsen I'd like
to do. Oddly enough, I don't know
many actors. I saw Derek Jacobi in a
restaurant the other day [Jacobi is
playing Uncle Vanya on Broadway]
and we waved at one another. The
company of actors can be rather
tedious: that combination of vanity
and insecurity."
"But isn't that you?"
He laughs. "You're right. It's a
freakish formula, unattractive in
others, but in me wholly engaging."
In the apartment we find Barry's
fourth wife, Lizzie Spender
(daughter of the poet, Stephen),
sitting on the sofa going through
details of the forthcoming tour.
Barry has had four wives and
numerous liaisons. He has lost touch
with his first wife, the second two
are "the mothers of my children", so
he stills sees them. He seems a
devoted father. "I must remember
that I have a family" is one of the
plaintive lines that echoes from his
drinking years. His daughters are
grown up and living in Australia.
"Emily is an artist. Tessa was in
Home and Away for a while. I'm a
grandfather now. It's hard to
believe."
SCENE 5
8pm. The Booth Theatre on 44th
Street. Dame Edna: The Royal Tour
is playing to yet another capacity
house. For two and a half hours
Dame Edna has the audience in the
palm of her hand. She is formidable
(in both the English and the French
sense). She is vulgar ("I know Bill
Gates. Don't ask me why, but there's
something about Microsoft that
reminds me of my late husband,
Norm"). She is so politically
incorrect you want to cheer - and
you do.
The standing ovation is spontaneous
and sustained. As we leave, a woman
from Wisconsin turns to me and says,
"Is he the funniest man on earth or
what? Jack Benny, Bette Midler,
Jackie Mason, I've seen the best.
This guy is better."
SCENE 6
11pm. Dame Edna's dressing-room.
Her frocks are hanging all around
me. There's a never-ending line of
shoes that would warm Imelda
Marcos' heart. In the doorway
stands Barry Humphries, looking 20
years younger than when I last saw
him six hours ago. He is suddenly
rather beautiful: debonair and
decadent, it's Jack Buchanan meets
Aubrey Beardsley.
"What did you think?"
"You were wonderful. You must be
very happy."
"I am happier than I have ever been.
Do you remember Michael Arlen's
line: 'All I want is the respect of my
children and the love of head
waiters'? Well, all I want is the
respect of my wife and children and
the love of an audience."
Subject: truly silver!
New member and newly bi at 66! Here are 2 pictures to show (a) how truly
silver I am and (b) the damn good shape I'm in for 66.
Subject: Gay Intrigue Batters Britain's Labour Government
Ben Boxer notes that the item below
points clearly to a reality the world
at large persists in denying: We are
everywhere in everything as we have
always been and shall always shall
be, probably even after some mad
genetic scientist thinks he has
succeeded in wiping out our DNA.
We are an evolution. We adapt to
anything. Some of us are even
Republicans.
Headline:
Text:
"I am being exposed to a deliberate
and very ferocious hatchet job,"
Mandelson said. He claimed that
some Tory newspapers "hate me for
pushing the euro agenda and there is
more than a hint of homophobia
about some of the reporting."
In 1998, British tabloids had
something of a field day outing
closeted British politicians. In
October of that year, British cabinet
member Ron Davies, Secretary for
Wales, resigned his position in Tony
Blair's Government after the press
got wind he had been robbed at
knifepoint by a man he had picked up
in a gay cruising area.
The tabloids reveled in screaming
headlines about Davies and followed
them up with threats to out
Agriculture Minister Nick Brown.
Threatened with the publication of
what Brown described as "false
accounts" provided by an ex-lover,
Brown came out and retained his
office and the "unwavering support"
of Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Mandelson has been fielding public
accusations that he is gay since
columnist Matthew Parris, a
journalist and host of the BBC
television program Newsnight,
casually mentioned it was common
knowledge that Mandelson was gay
on the air. When Mandelson
complained, the BBC ordered its
journalists not to reference
Mandelson's sexuality on future
programs.
The BBC directive drew the ire of
Conservative Party members,
principally Tory opposition leader
William Hague, who defended the
outing of officials in government --
especially since not one of them was
a member of the conservative
minority.
Since that time, Mandelson has made
no reference to his sexual orientation
in public. However, he has told
journalists that he thinks some press
outlets have attacked his
homosexuality as a way of
undermining him.
Mandelson's relationship with
Reinaldo da Silva, his Brazilian
partner, had long been common
knowledge in Westminster. An
earlier relationship was exposed in
the News of the World in 1987 but
until two years ago his privacy was
rarely breached except in tabloid
newspapers owned by Tory backer
Rupert Murdoch.
Downing Street has attempted to
dismiss charges that Labour's
ministers are at war with one
another, though the very public
feuding between Robinson and
Mandelson undercuts those claims.
Mandelson, the BBC reports, still
enjoys Tony Blair's absolute
confidence.
------------------------------
End of silverfoxesclub-digest V1 #22
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