A sufferer of macular degeneration, she has served from time to time as a spokesperson for the Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB). Marg, Princess Warrior, the bespectacled, gladiatorial Friend and St. John’s-born filmmaker Roger Maunder calls her “the fighting Newfoundlander,” while Alana Walsh-Giovannini, co-founder of the ovarian cancer charity Belles with Balls NL, says, “She makes it easy for us to laugh at ourselves but not to make fun of ourselves … If anything, she’s raised up the perception of Newfoundlanders.”The charity leader beams from the sidelines as Maunder films Walsh. 6.3K likes. And I was afraid to ask about it, and here’s my brother making a joke about it, which made it all seem just normal.

Photo: Gabor JurinaMary Walsh has a theory about why Newfoundlanders are so funny. “Even his mother called him Ankles. Mary Cynthia Walsh, CM (born May 13, 1952) is a Canadian actress, comedian and social activist. It’s just using humour in that way.”“It just struck me that Newfoundland has given me everything. Inspired by residents who helped dig out neighbours during January’s “snowpocalypse” but unable to shovel after two back surgeries, she donated food to those in need and volunteered at the Froude Avenue Community Centre.Lorraine Power, Walsh’s hairstylist and long-time friend, says the comedian’s charitable pursuits are an example of “the softness in her,” which the Princess Warrior exterior doesn’t always convey. “I guess they just forgot and kind of left me there,” she laughs, noting she never returned to live at her parents’ home.She recalls being there, though, a few years later when her six-year-old brother, Greg, threw a bedtime tantrum, putting his fist through a door with the battle cry, “I’m not backing down tonight!” Walsh says it became something of a family motto: “I completely accepted it, that you should never back down.”And that’s where Mary and Marg intersect.

She notes she’s often too impulsive to consider the consequences, “and so it’s later, while I’m waiting to ambush the prime minister or something, and I’ve got that stupid costume on … I’m so full of shame that I just think, ‘Shag it. Now, at 67, she remains every bit the Princess Warrior, embracing aging, shattering barriers and explaining just what makes people from the Rock so darn funny. Acclaimed comedian Mary Walsh is best known for her multi-Gemini-Award-winning  work on CBC’s Mary wrote, produced, and starred in the Gemini award-winning show Among her many awards and honorary doctorates, Mary is also the recipient of the Order of Canada and the Governor General’s Lifetime Achievement Award in the Performing Arts.Acclaimed comedian and television personality Mary Walsh, with her trademark humour, draws on her life’s triumphs and tribulations, and in doing so hopes to help dispel the stigma surrounding mental health and addiction.

“There’s not many things that I regret,” she says, but does wish she had found sobriety sooner. But it might be worth it. She recalls her brother Greg’s response when he found out she was upset about being left out. We’re all helpers. “And she was like, ‘Oh God, now I have to get another coffee.’ And she left.”All was forgiven by 1993, when Walsh, at 41, broke new ground by launching the celebrated satirical news program Save for her stint at Ryerson, Walsh has never left St. John’s. What, are we going to have to write her a f**king book?’”Walsh laughs telling the story that often draws sad looks from non-Newfoundlanders. “To me, that was a big issue in my life that had never been brought up.

I shouldn’t really go over to that guy.’ And she was like, ‘F**k it!’”Walsh wonders instead if it’s bravery or stupidity. Marg leads by the fists — one clutching a microphone, the other a plastic sword — and verbally pummels the powerful for sport.

One afternoon, as she’s posing for a photo in the doorway of an indigo-blue house wearing a polka-dot coat, a man inside opens the door to investigate. “It’s a Lady Ball, and we figure she had the biggest lady balls that we know.”Walsh has been a warrior since birth, landing in the hospital with pneumonia at eight months before being sent by her parents to live with two aunts and an uncle in their supposedly warmer and drier house next door. She recalls getting drunk and crawling under the table to bite people’s ankles.

John’s residents beam with pride when they talk about her, though she’s treated less as a celebrity and more like a revered neighbour. Walsh, naturally, apologizes for the intrusion.

The inside feels more like a cottage than a house, with a rustic warmth, wood-beam ceilings and clusters of framed photos adorning tabletops throughout the living room.

If not now, when? What have I got to lose now?’”Walsh Sowed the seeds of her comedy career in Toronto in the early 1970s. Members of government are preferred prey, and she cuts to the core of their political essence in the space of a punchline.

“He went, ‘Jesus Christ, when is she gonna get it? “Surely we who spent our youth burning our bras, promoting free love and [were] out to do nothing less than totally changing the world for the better won’t just settle for withering away quietly,” she said during a speech at Toronto’s 2019 ideacity conference (a Zoomer Media property).She points to influences like Jane Fonda, a lifelong activist who’s still proudly getting arrested at climate change rallies at age 82. “And I didn’t really have my family when I was growing up, so Newfoundland has been my family … It’s an extra added little gift we get that we feel that kind of sense of home.”It’s one of the reasons Walsh spends so much time giving back to the community, working with charities related to addiction and mental health, among others, and local causes.

“Isn’t it a wonderful time for you to become PM, when all of the racist right-wing nuts have all gone over to Maxime Bernier, and all you’ve got left are the quiet racist right-wing nuts?”“Mary is excellent at being incredibly bold,” fellow St. John’s native and 22 Minutes comedy partner Cathy Jones says on the phone from Halifax. In her office, shelves contain books and some old VHS tapes in black cases, while a selection of photographs from her wedding hang on the wall by the stairs. She has been married to Donald Nichol since 2002. My life, my career, everything I know, everything I am came from here,” she says introspectively.