Sir Les Patterson (Barry Humphries) 1982.

'Barry Humphries admitted that the ability to find a killer put-down came from his mother alone.

'As a child he would save his pocket money to buy her a gift, only to be told: ‘You shouldn't have wasted your money on this. Send it back.’'

The dark side of the Dame: Four marriages, sex and alcohol addiction and a chequered relationship with his children - ALISON BOSHOFF on how troubled Edna Everage genius Barry Humphries laid the blame for it all firmly on his own mother

'Diane Millstead claimed that her husband had added insult to injury by draining their bank account and leaving her with a check for only £2,500 when he went.

'She called him a ‘grade A card-carrying narcissist’ who suffered from an Australian malady called: ‘Walkabout Willy syndrome’ and was an ‘inveterate skirt chaser’.'

The dark side of the Dame: Four marriages, sex and alcohol addiction and a chequered relationship with his children - ALISON BOSHOFF on how troubled Edna Everage genius Barry Humphries laid the blame for it all firmly on his own mother

'Son Oscar by age 11 was living in Beverly Hills and seeing a therapist for depression.

'He was sent to boarding school - Stowe in Buckinghamshire.'

The dark side of the Dame: Four marriages, sex and alcohol addiction and a chequered relationship with his children - ALISON BOSHOFF on how troubled Edna Everage genius Barry Humphries laid the blame for it all firmly on his own mother