Dame Edna Creator Barry Humphries Named CBE by Queen

Actor Barry Humphries, best known to millions of theatergoers as Dame Edna Everage, was named a Commander of the British Empire (CBE) as part of Queen Elizabeth’s Birthday Honours list yesterday.

According to BBC news, Humprhies said he was “deeply honored.” In an interview he gave to BBC Radio 4 as Dame Edna, he said: “Barry has been chafing in a pretty undignified way. Look, don’t tell anyone, I had a little word to The Queen. I said ‘Please throw him a crumb.'”

Humphries appeared on Broadway as himself in the original production of Oliver, playing Mr. Sowberry and understudying the lead role of Fagin. He has appeared twice on Broadway as Dame Edna — in the 1999 show Dame Edna: The Royal Tour, for which he won Tony, Drama Desk and Theatre World Awards, and then in 2005’s Dame Edna: Back With a Vengeance.

Nearly 950 individuals from various walks of life were honored by Queen Elizabeth.
Among the other recipients were Mamma Mia! producer Judy Craymer, actors Sylvia Syms, Bill Pertwee, and Peter Sallis, opera singers Emma Kirby, Stuart Burrows, and Rosalind Plowright, pop superstar Joe Cocker, authors Barbara Taylor Bradford, Rose Tremain, and Salman Rushdie, screenwriter Stephen Poliakoff, soccer star Ian Botham, and Michael Eavis, the founder of the Glastonbury Festival.