Past labels to laughs

The line to see British comedian and actor Eddie Izzard at Virgin Megastore on Sunset began forming at 3 p.m. and didn’t disappear until almost midnight. An emergency supply of DVDs had to be rushed in from the warehouse. As the two-hour event lapsed easily into five, one Virgin staffer declared this the biggest in-store signing in the last eight years.

While an estimated 750 fans waited outside, Izzard worked his way through his first signing in the United States -- arm sore, but stamina impressive.

In town to promote the DVD release of his Emmy-winning one-man show, “Dress to Kill,” Izzard, 40 and demure in a purple suit -- no dress -- seemed determined to greet every fan.

“It got tricky because I was enjoying chatting and I seemed to be going for ages and they said, ‘You’ve just done 30 people,’ ” Izzard recalled the next day. Lizz Green, 23, had driven from Claremont to Burbank to watch Izzard tape “The Tonight Show” and had to join the line where it curved into the residential streets of West Hollywood.

“I can’t think of another person that I would stand in line for 4 1/2 hours to meet for two minutes, but it was totally worth it,” Green said. “I was so impressed that he took time to chat with each person and actually make eye contact.” Izzard seemed glad to do it, even with trips to San Francisco and New York to follow.

“I like meeting people face-to-face. I’m interested to know what’s on their minds,” he said. “When you get into bigger venues, there’s a certain distance and the light’s in your eyes, so you’re playing to a feeling of an audience as opposed to actually seeing people.”

What he saw on this night was his growing American fan base: some who noticed his rise in Britain in the mid-1990s, others who caught “Dress to Kill” on HBO in 1999, and others who knew him as an actor first -- he appeared this year as Charlie Chaplin in “The Cat’s Meow.”

Although Izzard has been focusing on plays and movies of late, it is his stand-up that forms the core of people’s connection to him. He frequently gets personal, explaining his identity as an “executive transvestite,” for example, right before launching into highly informed riffs on gun violence and the history of the Western World, acting as Hitler, Napoleon, and the officer who arrested him for stealing makeup along the way.

When Green got to Izzard, she thanked him for being so upfront with his identity as a transvestite. “He stopped writing and looked up and said, ‘Don’t worry. We’ll make it. After all, it is our millennium.’ ”

Izzard was clearly pleased to see “quite an eclectic bunch of people, age ranging all over the place, the look is all over the place, and I love that.

“Being a transvestite, people do externally look and say, ‘Well, I’m not going to like that stuff,’ ” Izzard said. “They assume it’s going to be very sexuality-centric comedy, you know, ‘two lipsticks go into a bar ... ‘ “ But those who’ve been exposed to the world of Izzard know better.

“He makes people laugh until they forget what he’s wearing,” said Nikki MacGyver, 22, who has met Izzard about 10 times, most recently when he was performing “A Day in the Death of Joe Egg” in London’s West End. “He’s comfortable with himself, and that’s contagious.”

With Izzard’s Broadway debut set for March -- a second run of “Joe Egg” -- and a world tour filled with new material to follow, he seems in position to keep his fan base growing.

“His humor is always upbeat and optimistic, rather than angry and vindictive,” says MacGyver. “Of course, there will always be a part of me who wants him to stay the little secret of his loyal fans, but if Eddie ever becomes mainstream, it will be because the mainstream moves to him. And with the message he presents, that could only be a good thing.”

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All About Izzard

Age: 40.

How he got his start: School plays, street performing in London’s Covent Garden, 12 years at the Edinburgh Festival.

U.K. breakthrough: The debut of his first one-man show “Live at the Ambassadors” in 1993.

U.S. breakthrough: “Dress to Kill” on HBO in 1999. The special won two Emmys: writing and individual performance.

Film highlights: “Velvet Goldmine” (1998), “Mystery Men” (1999), “Shadow of the Vampire” (2000), “The Cat’s Meow” (2002).

What’s next: Will star with Victoria Hamilton in Peter Nichols’ “A Day in the Death of Joe Egg” on Broadway, a role he also played in London. Role in “A Revenger’s Tragedy,” a film directed by Alex Cox. A world tour in the fall. Izzard, who has performed in French while in France, will this time attempt to perform in German in Berlin.