The answer: Australian comedian and actor Barry Humphries, who died at the weekend, taking two famous characters with him to that vast starry stage in the sky.
Glittering Moonee Ponds, Melbourne, housewife Dame Edna Everage did for gladioli what slobbering Sydney cultural attache Sir Les Patterson did for dry cleaners everywhere.
Across more than five decades, Dame Edna became a global cultural phenomenon. The great joke, predicated by Humphries, was she was famous for being famous and for little other reason, but Dame Edna did it all so much more professionally and amusingly than the likes of Kim Kardashian.
In Dame Edna’s eyes, we were all lucky to be in her presence. She tossed out those gladioli to the audience, ecstatically growling "hello possums". She grilled her guests — most, but not all, of whom realised they were being sent up. And while happy to throw in a few double-entendres herself, who can forget that twisted, disgusted look she used when a guest went too far.
Sir Les was not one of Dame Edna’s kind of people. Offensive, lecherous, and uncouth, he would drool and dribble down the lapels of his awful jackets. With suit trousers far too short, wild hair, yellow false teeth and red blotched face, he was always holding a glass of scotch or similar.
He would spout forth on all manner of subjects, again the joke being that he thought he was famous when he wasn’t. A quick read of Sir Les’ curriculum vitae includes professional posts as minister for inland drainage and rodent control, chairman of the Australian chapter of the International Cheese Board, and etiquette and protocol adviser to the Australian government.
With two such outrageously extrovert and successful stage and screen characters to his credit, Humphries was able to hide his real self and just inject the parts of his persona he wanted into his creations.
Dame Edna was an unabashed Aussie, with her brashness and garishness. Yet, even with her suburban Melburnian housewife roots, she might not have been a million miles away from a transtasman doppelganger in the suburbs of a large New Zealand city.
Interestingly, Dame Edna made her first appearance in New Zealand. And her long-suffering travel companion and bridesmaid was the ever-saturnine Madge Allsop, from Palmerston North.
Like many highly successful comedians and performers, Humphries was extremely clever, a lover of the avant-garde and a biting satirist who saw ludicrousness and irrationality all around and wanted to prick the bubbles of pretentiousness and privilege. He was not going to let the threat of being cancelled for having an opinion, or being irreverent, stop him.
At one stage of his career, Humphries sought escape in the bottle from the pressures of touring, performing and constantly coming up with new material. He was also married four times and saw far less of his family than a father ideally would.
So why is it we warm to people such as Humphries? Well, everyone has their demons, of course. And when it comes to comedians and actors, in fact all creative people, we understand the pressures on them.
Basically, they put their life and soul, all their energy, into making things which please others. In Humphries’ case, that was making people happy by bringing smiles to their faces and raising plenty of laughs.
By stirring the pot, by showing just how ridiculous some aspects of modern life are, he has done us all a service.
Could there ever be a better use of talent than to improve the lives of others?
