Who is Barry Humphries?

COURTESY PHOTO Barry Humphries Depends who you ask.

If you ask Dame Edna, she'll tell you Barry Humphries is an eternal albatross around her neck, that he's her unscrupulous manager who brazenly steals and embezzles from her.

But like Clark Kent and Superman, the two have never been spotted together in the same room at the same time.

Others will tell you Barry Humphries is Dame Edna without the rhinestones, blue hair and gowns.

Australia's famous character actor is also a painter; he studied at the University of Melbourne, where he held his first Dada exhibition.

Though in the 1950s he created the Melbourne housewife Mrs. Norm Everage (who eventually evolved into the largerthan life character of Dame Edna), he also performed in many other plays, including "Waiting for Godot," in Australia's first production of a Samuel Beckett play.

Mr. Humphries performed in many West End productions and starred in Piccadilly Theatre's 1967 revival of "Oliver!" He played character roles in British films, plays and television and wrote a cult comic strip for Peter Cook's satirical magazine Private Eye.

His Dame Edna has appeared on stage in one-woman shows and on numerous TV specials.

In addition to a Tony Award and a Tony nomination, he's received the Rose d'Or de Monteux for his television show, "A Night on Mount Edna," and at the 1997 Banff Television Festival he received a Sir Peter Ustinov Endowment for his life work as an entertainer. He's written novels, poetry, plays and autobiographies (one as Dame Edna, one as Mr. Humphries). And he's married to Lizzie Spender, daughter of British poet Sir Stephen Spender.

So, he's not quite the slouch Dame Edna makes him out to be.