Mary Walsh
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| Mary Walsh | |||||||
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| Born | Mary Cynthia Walsh May 13, 1952 St. John's, Newfoundland |
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| Occupation | Actor, comedian | ||||||
| Years active | 1987–present | ||||||
| Spouse(s) | Donald Nichol (2002–present) | ||||||
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Mary Cynthia Walsh, CM, LL.D (h.c.)[1] was born on May 13, 1952, in St. John's, Newfoundland, and is an actress and comedian. Walsh suffers from macular degeneration, a disease that has rendered her left eye almost blind. Walsh has a son, Jesse Cox, born in 1989. She married Donald Nichol in 2002 , having only known him for 9 months.
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[edit] Biography
Walsh had a difficult childhood with alcoholic parents. She attended a strict convent school and then studied theatre in Toronto at Ryerson University, but dropped out to work with the CODCO comedy troupe on a series of stage shows, which eventually evolved into a sketch comedy series.
The CODCO series ran from 1987 to 1992 on CBC Television.
In 1992, she began to work with former co-star Rick Mercer and former CODCO co-stars Cathy Jones and Greg Thomey to create a new television series called This Hour Has 22 Minutes. The show would be a parody of the nightly news and would poke fun at Canadian and international politics. 22 Minutes received strong ratings during its earlier seasons and Mary's character Marg Delahunty became famous for buttonholing politicians and submitting them to satirical interviews. Usually Marg Delahunty would recite a scripted piece intended to humiliate the politician, often by providing criticism and "grandmotherly" advice. Sometimes Marg appeared as "Marg, Princess Warrior", a parody of Lucy Lawless' fictional "warrior princess" Xena.
In the mid-1990s Mary openly admitted to being an alcoholic and that her 22 Minutes co-star and now close friend, Cathy Jones, had helped her seek treatment. She took several months off from 22 Minutes to take part in Alcoholics Anonymous.
In 2001 Rick Mercer left 22 Minutes, and rumors circulated that it was due to a long-standing feud with Walsh. Walsh also allegedly rolled her eyes during an interview about Mercer's show Rick Mercer Report, which some see as further evidence of the feud. She is currently taking a one-year sabbatical from 22 Minutes to pursue movies and Mary Walsh: Open Book, the CBC program she created in 2003. In 2004, Walsh hosted a segment on the CBC documentary series The Greatest Canadian in which she championed the case for Sir Frederick Banting (the Nobel prize-winning discoverer of insulin) as the greatest Canadian who ever lived.
Besides TV acting, she has worked on movies such as Mambo Italiano, Rain, Drizzle and Fog, Buried on Sunday, The Divine Ryans, Young Triffie and Violet. She created a show called Hatching, Matching and Dispatching in 2005, which was picked up by CBC for the 2006 season.
In 2007 Walsh made her feature directorial debut with the 2007 movie Young Triffie. She is the first Newfoundlander in six years to have a film in general release across Canada. She also revived Marg Delahunty for the Royal Canadian Air Farce's 300th Episode, filmed in Toronto in March. In June, she hosted the Pride Toronto Gala & Awards ceremony. On December 15, 2007, Walsh made national news with a story about her upcoming Nudity, Sexuality, Violence and Coarse Language in which a large group of people who went naked in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador harbour in -11 Celsius (12.2 Fahrenheit) temperature to be filmed as a part of the show's signoff. Walsh herself did not go nude.[2]
[edit] Honours
She won Best Supporting Actress at the Atlantic Film Festival in 1992 for her performance in Mike Jones' Secret Nation.
In 1993 Walsh was chosen to deliver the prestigious Graham Spry lecture which was broadcast nationally on CBC Radio.
In 1994, Walsh addressed the United Nations Global Conference on Development in New York. She has also served as a spokesperson for Oxfam Canada's human rights campaign.
On November 4, 2006 Mary and Ed MacDonald picked up a Gemini Award for the best writing in a comedy or variety program for their work in Hatching, Matching and Dispatching
