Dame Edna Everage. International megastar. Australian housewife. Public commentator with mauve hair and rhinestone-studded glasses. Her favorite pet name for fans is possums – unless they are in the cheap seats and then she calls them Les Mizzies, as in “the miserable ones.” She is brash and brazen and incorrect in all ways political and polite. Who is she?

Years ago and in a more modest version, Dame Edna sprung from the imagination of Barry Humphries, the award-winning actor and writer, who developed the character in the 1950s for a theater group. From appearances in skits to one-woman shows, to Broadway, to a Tony Award in 2002, to a national tour and a recurring role on the TV series “Ally McBeal,” Dame Edna has become one of the most popular stars ever to wear pink fur.

Some say she’s a phenomenon unto herself. Others say she is Humphries in drag. Either way, she’s coming to Merrill Auditorium in Portland for four performances Jan. 17-19 with her show “A Night with Dame Edna,” which features her unique, audience-interactive monologue.

I caught up with Dame Edna last month while she was performing in St. Louis. She spoke of her hard road to success, the death of her husband from prostate cancer, her determination to become a star. She had a cold so the interview was short. But it’s a fair guess that her interviews are almost always short and often scripted. That’s why the following is written, more or less, like a question and answer session.

There’s very little to say when Dame Edna takes off. After all, she’s the star. “I love anyone called by the name Alicia,” was the first thing Dame Edna said to me, after missing two previous phone calls I put in to her. And without me asking, she unfolded the story of her love affair with America. Hear all of her comments in a deep voice with exaggerated lilts. Think about her fingers full of costume jewelry and her flashing with a knowing mischief.

Dame Edna began: “I was a Melbourne housewife with three young children and an older husband who already had little prostatic twinges – even on the honeymoon. I was lucky and I won the lovely mother contest. I got a trip to England and saw ‘My Fair Lady,’ which planted in my mind the idea of a humble young woman becoming an aristocrat. I went back to Australia to become an actress. I put my family last – an important decision, which I would recommend to any woman. And then I became world-famous in Australia. In the ’70s, a long time before you were born, Alicia, I had a huge success in the West End of London. Americans used to come and say: You’d do swell in the States. The English people said: ‘Never go to America!’ It’s the graveyard of English-speaking comics! But I find that everything I say in America is instantly comprehended. I have a direct line, I think, to the American psyche.”

If you’ve been doing this show for more than 30 years, I asked, why are you so popular at the particular juncture?

“It’s an accident,” Dame Edna assured. “All these things in life are accidents, aren’t they? It’s sort of like pregnancy, really. Or it’s as if Uncle Sam came up and tapped me on the shoulder and said: ‘I’ve decided I like you.’ I like America. I like its warts and all. I like its ugliness as well as its beauty. Its splendor and its miseries. And now, here I am coming to Portland. Who knows what they will make of me there? I like to think, you see, that this is the world premiere of my show in Portland after a rather lengthy trial on Broadway.”

I asked Dame Edna what she thought about Martha Stewart, another megastar to whom she often has been compared.

“I don’t know her but I feel she is paying the price that is exacted from celebrities. She has become iconic, so famous and wealthy that her misfortunes were seized upon with a kind of triumphant and ruthless joy.”

Haven’t fame and fortune brought you misfortunes, too?

“Well, they haven’t, Alicia. Because I am meant to have this success. And I never take it seriously. I have no investments at all, no insider trading. Listen, if you begin life telling people how to fold napkins for a dinner party and you end up an insider trader, something has gone wrong, hasn’t it? Martha Stewart is a victim of hubris. I wonder if your readers know that word?”

Sometimes you are called a clown or jester or fool, I said. Do you think of yourself in these roles?

“Fool I don’t mind. It’s rather an honor to be a fool. But I never thought of myself as that, Alicia. I thought of myself as a serious actress. What a fool I was. My Lady Macbeth only got laughs. When I played Racine’s ‘Phaedra’ – a role probably unknown to your readers – and in Eugene O’Neill’s ‘Mourning Becomes Electra,’ they laughed. So I decided to be me.”

Don’t you think you scare people?

“I perhaps do. Women say to me: You pick on people. I don’t. I empower them, Alicia. I’m in the empowerment business. I love all these words. Don’t you, Alicia?”

What do you think women can learn from you?

“Women can learn megastardom is possible for the most unlikely. When I was a young mother in Melbourne, looking up with wrists deep in the sink in gray water with mutton fat and green peas floating in it, looking out through the chipped venetian blinds to a back yard with broken toys in it, hearing my husband calling to me, I thought my biological cycle was over. The doorbell rang and it was a journalist telling me I had won the Lovely Mother Award. I went to England. Then ‘My Fair Lady’ and I went back to Australia and did a little acting and my career took off – and now I’m playing in Maine! However, I would never have dreamt this would happen. So when I look out and there are women in the audience, I seize upon them. The women are the first to laugh. Men are less interesting. Mostly, I think women think: Thank goodness you’re there, Edna, giving us hope. We, too, can become megastars. Martha Stewart let us down. It’s a sad thing but she did.”

I knew we were coming to an end. Dame Edna was doubling back on her stories.

“I hope to see you,” Dame Edna said in her farewell. “Will I be able to wave to you in the audience? I’ll tell you what: You’ll be instantly recognizable if you wear something nice because people now wear anoraks and trainers and T-shirts. They chew gum and they’re constantly swigging water. My voice is nearly gone, Alicia. Bye-bye.”

And, with a click, that was it. Dame Edna. Megastar. Headed for the next show.