Australian Entertainment Industry Loses An Icon

Australian entertainer Barry Humphries, best known for his comic character Dame Edna Everage, has died aged 89. The star had been in hospital in Sydney after suffering complications following hip surgery in March. He had a fall in February. Humphries’ most famous creation became a hit in the UK in the 1970s and landed her own TV chat show, the Dame Edna Everage Experience, in the late 1980s. His other personas included the lecherous drunk Sir Les Patterson. In a statement, his family remembered him as “completely himself until the very end, never losing his brilliant mind, his unique wit and generosity of spirit”.