Film Roles
Since the late 1960s Humphries has appeared in numerous films, mostly in supporting or cameo roles. His credits include the UK sex comedy Percy's Progress (1974), David Baker's The Great Macarthy (1975) and Bruce Beresford's Barry McKenzie Holds His Own (1974) in which Edna was made a Dame by then Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam.
Other film credits include Side by Side (1975) and The Getting of Wisdom (1977). The same year, he had a cameo as Edna in the Robert Stigwood musical film Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (which became infamous as one of the biggest film flops of the decade), followed in 1981 by his part as the fake-blind TV-show host Bert Schnick in Shock Treatment, the sequel to The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
He was more successful with his featured role as Richard Deane in Dr. Fischer of Geneva (1985); this was followed by Howling III (1987), a cameo as Rupert Murdoch in the miniseries Selling Hitler (1991) with Alexei Sayle, a three-role cameo in Philippe Mora's horror satire Pterodactyl Woman from Beverly Hills (1994), the role of Count Metternich in Immortal Beloved (1994), as well as roles in The Leading Man (1996), the Spice Girls' film Spice World, the Australian feature Welcome to Woop Woop (1997), and Nicholas Nickleby (2002), in which he donned female garb to play Nathan Lane's wife.
Humphries has featured in various roles in comedy performance films including The Secret Policeman's Other Ball (1982) and A Night of Comic Relief 2 (1989). In 1987 he starred as Les Patterson in one of his own rare flops, the disastrous Les Patterson Saves the World, directed by George T. Miller of Man From Snowy River fame and co-written by Humphries with his third wife, Diane Millstead.
In 2003 Humphries had a small role in the animated film Finding Nemo. In it he plays Bruce, a shark who attempts to curb his addiction to fish eating. He nearly falls off the wagon due to his catching a whiff of fish blood. Playing this role, given his own struggles with alcoholism, is perhaps a good example of Humphries' penchant for self-deprecation.
On 19 June 2011, it was announced that Humphries would play the role of the Goblin King in Peter Jackson's three-part adaptation of Tolkien's The Hobbit, due for release in December 2012 and 2013 and July 2014.
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—Sara Lawrence Lightfoot (20th century)