Legendary Australian comedian Barry Humphries – best known for his role as Dame Edna Everage – remains ‘stable and responsive’ in hospital following ‘inaccurate reports’ 

There were grave fears for Humphries, 89, on Friday following reports he was found unresponsive at Sydney’s St Vincent’s Hospital the night before, ABC Radio Sydney reported

A St Vincent’s Hospital representative has since confirmed the Aussie icon is responsive and stable

‘I can confirm that reports that Mr Humphries is unresponsive are incorrect. He’s stable,’ a spokesman told Daily Mail Australia.

‘Barry has been in an increasingly perilous state of health,’ entertainment commentator Peter Ford told Sunrise.

He later told The Morning Show: ‘St Vincent’s Hospital are now saying that Barry is in fact, And awake and if that cracking jokes this morning with the nursing staff.’

‘There are two very extreme ends of the spectrum, so clearly we’ll stay on top of it.’

His four children are now by his hospital bedside, including sons Oscar and Rupert, who travelled from London and his daughter, Emily, who he was estranged from for two decades before the pair recently reconciled.

Humphries was readmitted to hospital earlier this week following post-surgery complications. 

He tripped over a rug while reaching for a book at home in February and was later hospitalised for hip surgery.

Humphries was then released from hospital but Daily Mail Australia revealed on Wednesday that he had been readmitted this week, with his family rushing to his bedside. 

Mr Ford said: ‘Things are tough, and all we can do at this point in time is to basically give a big shout out to Barry Humphries and say, ‘Australia loves you and we will always be grateful for everything you have given us’.’

‘Barry has a fighting spirit and he’s not going to give up easily.

Humphries then issued a jovial statement from his hospital bed, via his publicist, thanking fans and well-wishers.

‘Barry would like to thank every body for the support and best wishes he has received but he would like more and more,’ the statement said.

His wife Elizabeth Spender said that he was ‘doing fine’. 

But insiders admitted ‘things are tough’ and reports claimed his condition had worsened and that he was being ‘kept comfortable’ in hospital.

Throughout his career, Humphries has met and charmed most of the Royal Family, from the late Queen Mother to King Charles III.

He had still been touring the world, including in the UK, over the last year.

At the time, he said he was hoping to be back on his feet in time for another ‘one man show’ to be held later this year.

‘I have to get back on my feet… I’m going back on tour later this year. 

‘The result of my broken hip means I now have a titanium hip… you can call me ‘Bionic Bazza’,’ he told the Sydney Morning Herald in March.

The star said his medical bill ‘is bloody enormous’, adding: ‘I strongly advise not breaking your hip!

Humphries has been married four times and has four children – art dealer and journalist Oscar, actress Tessa, Rupert and Emily. 

He lives in London with his wife Lizzie Spender but has been spending time in Australia since December, catching up with old friends such painter John Olsen, who died earlier this month aged 95. 

From creating the outrageous Dame Edna Everage to befriending the Royal Family: How Barry Humphries conquered the world – as grave fears held for comedy great after he’s rushed to hospital

 By Stephen Gibbs for Daily Mail Australia

Barry Humphries’ most famous creation remains Dame Edna Everage but for many fans the character who began life as a Melbourne housewife in 1955 is not even his best work. 

While Edna’s lilac permed hair, outlandish cat-eye glasses and garish frocks have become internationally famous over the decades, Humphries has more than one act in his repertoire. 

Some cite as their personal favourite the vulgar, alcoholic ‘cultural attache’ Sir Les Patterson with his mottled face, food-spattered wardrobe and stained tombstone teeth.

Others prefer grandfatherly Sandy Stone, settled back in his chair and dressing gown, delivering gentle monologues which rather than raise laughter could reduce audiences to tears. 

But Humphries is even more than the sum of those comic inventions: a successful musical theatre actor, talented landscape painter, film producer, author and scriptwriter. 

Away from the spotlight the noted raconteur is a voracious reader and rare book collector, husband of 23 years to fourth wife Lizzie Spender and father of four children.   

News the national treasure, now 89 and having recently undergone hip surgery, has been taken to hospital has Australians imagining life without Edna.

One of the old friends Humphries caught up with recently after returning to Sydney in December was the acclaimed artist John Olsen, who died on April 11 aged 95. 

As entertainment reporter Peter Ford put it on Wednesday: ‘Things are tough, and all we can do at this point in time is give a big shoutout to Barry Humphries and say Australia loves you and we will always be grateful for everything you have given us.’   

Humphries recently thanked a gossip columnist for not calling him ‘an icon’ but his achievements make that difficult. He has been a fixture of the local entertainment scene for seven decades and is also a genuine international star.

Among Humphries’ notable friends have been comedian Spike Milligan and novelist and former politician Jeffrey Archer. He has charmed most of the British Royal Family from the Queen Mother to King Charles III and Princess Diana. 

Biographer Anne Pender wrote in 2010 that Humphries was both ‘the most significant comedian to emerge since Charlie Chaplin’ and ‘the most significant theatrical figure of our time’.

As Dame Edna he was one of British talk show host Michael Parkinson’s most popular regular guests and the gladioli-clutching matron even featured on the US comedy drama Ally McBeal.

Humphries tripped on a rug while reaching for a book in February and underwent surgery at St Vincent’s Hospital in Darlinghurst and has been readmitted there now with family including Spender by his side. 

In late March, Humphries told Nine Entertainment’s Andrew Hornery he expected to be back in good shape within weeks. 

‘I have to get back on my feet,’ he said then. ‘I’m going back on tour later this year. The result of my broken hip means I now have a titanium hip… you can call me ‘Bionic Bazza’.’

Unlike Edna, who has claimed to suffer from Asperger syndrome, bipolar, gluten intolerance and attention deficit disorder, Humphries had appeared to be in relatively good health.   

Like his late mate, the British comedian Peter Cook, Humphries was a raging alcoholic as a young man but gave up the drink after an epic binge in the early 1970s when he was bashed and found unconscious in a gutter.  

John Barry Humphries, AO, CBE, was born in the Melbourne suburb Kew in 1934, to construction manager Eric Humphries and his wife Louisa. The family was well off and Barry was raised in Camberwell, one of the city’s new garden suburbs.

Young Barry, nicknamed ‘Sunny Sam’ by his parents, was indulged with whatever material things he wanted but spent much of his time alone playing dress-ups in the backyard.

Humphries once said he was spoiled to have a whole box of clothes – ‘Red Indian, sailor suit, Chinese costume’ which he would don to ‘disguise myself as different characters.’ 

‘I also found that entertaining people gave me a great feeling of release, making people laugh was a very good way of befriending them,’ he said. ‘People couldn’t hit you if they were laughing.’

In his teens Humphries began rebelling against the restrictions of 1940s suburban life in Melbourne and became increasingly artistic, to his parents’ annoyance.

The first substantial character he invented was the dandy Dr Aaron Azimuth, donning a black cloak, black homburg hat and applying mascara. 

At Melbourne Grammar School Humphries shunned sport and excelled in English and art. He spent two years studying law at the University of Melbourne but did not graduate. Instead, he became an exponent of the Dada absurdist art movement. 

An exhibit he called ‘Pus in Boots’ consisted of filling a pair of Wellington boots with custard; a pretend pesticide Humphries dubbed ‘Platytox’ was promoted as being effective in targeting the platypus. 

In one public prank, Humphries would dress as a Frenchman and board a tram after an accomplice pretending to be a blind man got on. The showman would push past his collaborator, kicking him in the shins and yelling, ‘Get out of my way, you disgusting blind person’.

Humphries’ most famous creation first emerged as plain Mrs Edna Everage in a sketch performed at Melbourne University’s Union Theatre in December 1955. 

His intention was to lampoon the staid lives and standards of his parents’ generation; Edna could be acid-tongued and condescending but always remained likeable.  

Over coming years she would progress from Moonee Ponds mother to ‘Housewife and Superstar’, ‘Megastar’ and ‘Gigastar’, making her ‘Hello Possums!’ greeting a trademark.

Humphries made his London stage debut in The Demon Barger in 1959 and went on to appear in several productions of Oliver!. He lived and worked in London throughout the 1960s.

Humphries returned to Australia in the 1970s and with producer Phillip Adams and director Bruce Beresford he created The Adventures of Barry McKenzie, which became the country’s most successful locally-made film. 

His one-man stage shows, usually built around Edna, captured further attention with tours of England, first in 1976, and eventually the United States in 1998.

Humphries’ American breakthrough led to a writing a satirical column for Vanity Fair magazine and a television role as eccentric lawyer Claire Otoms opposite Calista Flockhart in Ally McBeal. 

In 2007, Melbourne renamed Brown Alley in the central business district Dame Edna Place and the same year Humphries was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire for services to entertainment. 

Humphries has appeared in the Beethoven film biography Immortal Beloved, Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie, and The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, as well as voicing Bruce the sha