My Life as Me
by Barry Humphries
125 Members (3.61)
On This Page
Description
Described by Barry Humphries as a 'cubist self-portrait', My Life as Merevisits his childhood, his adolescence, his complicated relationship with Australia, and his adventures of the heart and of the stage. In this heady memoir, his various distractions - painting, travel, collecting, marriage and divorce - are explored, if not explained.A master of comic writing, Barry tells us of his privileged youth in suburban Melbourne and, with a disarming candour that he already regrets, describes his show more hectic artistic and romantic career in Australia, England and America. There are also hilarious glimpses of his life as the creator of Sir Les Patterson, Sandy Stone, Dame Edna Everage - and himself. show lessTags
Recommendations
Member Reviews
Members
- Recently Added By
Author Information
60+ Works 1,007 Members
Common Knowledge
- Original publication date
- 2002
- People/Characters
- Barry Humphries
- Epigraph
- I do not know
whether to put in the things I do not remember
as well as the things I do remember
Gertrude Stein - Dedication
- To Tessa and Emily, Oscar and Rupert
In the hope
That somewhere in these pages
They might recognise
their father - First words
- PROLOGUE : Ten years ago, at a publisher's request, I wrote a brief account of my life. ... the publisher, he protested that it was too short ... In offering a second volume, I have thus decided to begin once more at the begi... (show all)nning and write a parallel memoir.
- Quotations
- (p58) I am often asked how I came upon the character of Dame Edna Everage. ... A terrible weariness descends on me at these moments and I sometimes wish I could just discreetly pass them a booklet or a video-cassette explaini... (show all)ng it all. Instead I usually manage to tell Edna's story briefly, or at length, depending on the attractiveness of my interlocutor.
(p135) That phrase of my mother's, oft repeated, came back to me ... It's hard to believe, Barry, but you used to be such a nice boy.
(p186) When, on the thirty-first of December 1971, with the love and support of others, I finally discovered to my surprise that life was much more stimulating without stimulants, I was living in Delmont, a private nursing ho... (show all)me in Warrigal Road in Melbourne. ... Slowly my emerging self ... began to look around ... I was starting life anew.
(p297) ... I was constantly angling myself at the table in order to get a better look at the tall, blonde diner across the restaurant.
'I know her,' Tristram announced. 'She's Lizzie Spender. I'll introduce you if you like... (show all).'
It was perhaps a year before I saw my future wife once more, at a party at the Groucho Club, and almost as long again before I proposed that we meet for lunch. But we were ultimately married in Spoleto, that lovely hilltop town in Umbria.
(note : not in book - Grouch Club was 1988, 'lunch meet' was when he was separated from his third wife, and he married Lizzie, his 4th wife, in 1990 and remained married, as he was 'much smarter now', until his death on 22 April 2023) - Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)And so I set these things down before the onset of the first of a thousand small physical degradations as, in a still-distant suburb, Death strides whistling towards me.
- Original language
- English
Classifications
- Genres
- Biography & Memoir, Nonfiction
- DDC/MDS
- 792.7092 — Arts & recreation Recreation, sports, and performing arts Stage presentations Variety shows and theatrical dancing; burlesque, cabaret, vaudeville, music hall, nightclubs modified standard subdivisions History, geographic treatment, biography; Description, critical appraisal of specific theatres and companies Biography
- LCC
- PN3018 .H85 .A3 — Language and Literature Literature (General) Literature (General) Drama Dramatic representation. The theater Special regions or countries
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 125
- Popularity
- 259,753
- Rating
- (3.61)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper
- ISBNs
- 4
- ASINs
- 1
