'In this unauthorised biography, acquired for an unprecedented advance and in spectacular secrecy, long-time manager and the man who was there from the very beginning, Barry Humphries takes a behind-the-scenes, no-holds-barred look at an icon of our times - Dame Edna Everage. Superstar, swami, confidante and advisor to royalty, Hollywood stars and international political leaders, Dame Edna's life has catapulted her far from her humble Moonee Ponds beginnings as a suburban housewife to the most elite social and artistic circles in the world.
'Who would have thought that this modest Australian woman could achieve so much from London to Louisiana to New York to Tokyo? Who could have anticipated her global fame? Barry Humphries certainly didn't.' (From the publisher's website.)
Epigraph: A mask tells us more than a face - Oscar Wilde
Within every man there is the reflection of a woman, and within every woman there is the reflection of a man, Within every man and woman there is also the reflection of an old man and an old woman, a little boy and a little girl. - Hyemeyohsts Storm
No one is unknown except for me - Francis Picabia
Nothing ages a man like living always with the same woman - Norman Douglas
Beginning with Proteus and on through the 'Metamorphoses' of Ovid, down to the wisest and most dearly beloved of Caliphs, Haroun-al-Raschid, everybody worth mentioning has delighted in the sensation of trying be be somebody else. - Edgar Saltus
At last - the truth! - Pietro Aretino
