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Mary Williams Walsh

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mary Williams Walsh
Born (1955-12-05) December 5, 1955 (age 68)
Occupation(s)business journalist, investigative journalist

Mary Williams Walsh (born December 1, 1955) is an American investigative journalist.

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  • Mary Walsh | Sept 30, 2013 | Appel Salon

Transcription

Tina Srebotnjak 1: Over to our partner at the Toronto Star who is Bob Hepburn and he's the Director of Community Relations and Communications. [applause] Bob Hepburn: Thank you, Tina. And my job here tonight is to introduce Mary and Richard. But before you... You know the Toronto Star, for a couple of years now, we've had a really bad reputation with Rob Ford. [laughter] And so I wanna take this opportunity to thank Mary, [laughter] or I should be thanking Marg, for at least for 24 hours taking the heat off of the Toronto Star. [laughter] Marg showed up in front of Rob Ford's house, and Rob called 911 on her. [laughter] So thank you. BH: Let me say a few words about Richard. For the past 35 years he has worked professionally in the world of performing arts and arts journalism. And in that time, he was written, directed and acted in more then 225 productions. And he served as artistic director of five major Canadian theatres and been associate director of the Stratford Festival. He has taught and/or directed at the University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser, University of Winnipeg, George Brown and Sheraton Colleges. And since 2000, he's been our chief theatre critic. He's also hosted a weekly CBC radio program on musical theatre and served as creative head of arts programming at TV Ontario, and in his spare time, he's written six books. [laughter] Toronto Life magazine described Richard as this city's most influential critic. I'd go further and I'd say Richard is this country's most influential critic. BH: Now, Mary Walsh. She was born and raised in St. John's, still lives there. She studied theatre at Ryerson but dropped out to work with CODCO comedy troupe, which toured Newfoundland and then later ran on CBC TV from 1987 to '92. 1992 Mary began to work with Rick Mercer, who we had as a Star Talk here last year, and several CODCO co-stars to create "This Hour Has 22 Minutes" for CBC. Since its debut, that show has never been off the air. It was with 22 Minutes that Mary's character, my beloved warrior princess, who as Marg says, "Cuts through all the BS," became famous for buttonholing politicians, like our mayor, and submitting them to a Marg interview. BH: Through the years, Mary has acted, directed and written shows for the stage and television. The list is very long but suffice it to say, her career has been outstanding. In recent months, Mary has been touring Canada and now Ontario with her latest show 'Dancing with Rage.' Over the years, she has won countless awards. I think at last count, it was 18 Gemini Awards for her television and writing, acting work. She has an honorary degrees from McGill, Memorial and Trent, and she is a member of the Order of Canada. She has addressed the UN Global Conference on Development. She has served as a spokesperson for Oxfam. And last year, she received a Governor General's Performing Arts Award for Lifetime Artistic Achievement. Please welcome, Mary Walsh and Richard Ouzounian. [applause] Mary Walsh: Of course I'm not really speaking to Richard, so it's going to be an oddly awkward interview. [laughter] Because he gave me a very bad review for my "Dancing with Rage" [laughter] and so of course, normally, I'm not rancorous or resentful or unforgiving as you can imagine, but this time I think I'll just hold the grudge. [laughter] Richard Ouzounian: Okay, good. Well as I was leaving the house tonight, my wife gave me an unusually fervent embrace goodbye, and I said, "Why?" And she said, "Well you're going off to share a stage with Mary after what you wrote about her play last year. [chuckle] And I think she will smite you and you'll never come back again." [laughter] But I think we've known each other too long for that to happen. So Mary, what I do wanna do is, for some of the people here who may not have seen the show, ask you some of the things that get touched on it which touch some of your life as well, right? What about "The Little Girl Who Lived Next Door to Her Family?" MW: Well "The Little Girl Who Lived Next Door to Her Family" was just a book I read from... Much shorter now actually, not to say it was alright, the review, but... [laughter] And not to in any way forgive you and not grind you inexorably underneath my warrior's heal, [laughter] but I did shorten many things and one of those was The Little Girl. But The Little Girl... I did grow up next door to my family, and I grew up with my aunts, my two maiden aunts and and uncle at Number 9 Carters' Hill. My family, my mother and father and seven brothers and sisters all lived next door at number 7, which was odd. You know, there's no way around it. RO: Why did that happen? MW: Well, you know, I never really... The story is, because I had pneumonia when I was eight months old, and the upstairs, Number 9 was a less damp environment than Number 7. And then I just... Everybody forgot about me or something and I just... [laughter] and I stayed. But the story that I read in the show, The Little Girl Who Grew Up Next Door to Her Family, has parallels to my story, but it's not really my story, it's a fairy tale of my story. It's like Marg Delahunty in the show, she gets knocked up at Expo '67. She goes up to sing with Our Lady of Mercy Choir, [laughter] and she has macular degeneration. Now I do have macular degeneration and I was in Our Lady of Mercy Choir but, tragically, never got to go to Expo because Sister Mary Catherine used to go around. I got in the choir which was quite an accomplishment but then as soon as I... And she put me in alto. And she would push her wimple back and she'd go, "Something is wrong in the alto." [laughter] MW: And she'd push it back and she'd go around. I desperately, desperately wanted to get to Expo, but she realized quickly it was me, and I was out. So I never got to Expo and, of course, never got knocked up, and it's a little bit late now. [laugher] So the things in the story, though many of them parallel, my experience, they're not... It's not a memoir. It's a play. And of course, like I always say, and it sounds kind of crass to say it, but if I had breast cancer then Marg would have breast cancer. But I have macular degeneration so that's what I know about, so that's what I write about, right? I mean it just naturally comes to me to use my own experience because I don't have anybody else's experience to use really, [chuckle] yeah. RO: How this little girl living in the house next door, because of the tuberculosis, got to be a performer, you... S?: Pneumonia. MW: Pneumonia, yeah. Thank you. RO: Pneumonia, sorry. Thank you. [laughter] You were telling me when we were having a conversation a couple of years ago, that there was one point where you finally thought life was pointless and "I'm just gonna... I think you said, "I'm just gonna lie on the sofa and watch Coronation Street." MW: Well I was 18 and everything I'd done in my life had failed. You know how... I never... I didn't really want to be an actor. What I wanted to be was a journalist and I really... From reading Ginny Gordon, a girl journalist, as a child. [chuckle] Books were my whole life really. And I cannot tell you how much I owe to books and what a tragedy it is that I have macular degeneration, for me, that I have to have glasses now 'cause I just read all the time. I lived in another world. And people always worried about people doing... Being on their cell phones and stuff, but I was on... I was in books or reading the back of the cereal, reading, reading, reading all the time as an escape from many things and as a... It kind of opens up all kinds of worlds to you that are just so marvellous. Anyway, there I was, I was 18, failed at everything. I'd failed at school even though I was really smart. But, you know, like I hate saying I was really smart, but I was. [laughter] But like I got 7 in Algebra [laughter] and 22 in French. Anyway, so... And I hadn't gone to school at all 'cause I got in with a hard crowd. And that's the interesting thing, there's always an opening with a hard crowd. [laughter] Like the good girls, there's never room. You know, like they've got a closed group. But the hard crowd, there's always room. "Come on in." [laughter] Anyway, you know and I was drinking and pipping off and smoking and doing all those things, not having sex though. RO: No. MW: Because I was a Catholic girl and [laughter] God was watching all the time. I don't know where they... I don't know where the reputation of Catholic girls being very loose comes from, seriously, but I guess... I don't know. Maybe the rest of them were at it, I don't know. So I was 18 and I had been going to marry an American because in the '40s, England gave America all this land in Newfoundland, and they built four bases there. And Argentia is still there. So I got engaged because I had failed in school and I didn't have any prospects, and I had a... All I had was just ambition. Like, I wanted something, but I had no idea what it was. Like, I... And so I thought, "Well I'll marry Bob Brownlee and go live in Colorado." [laughter] So I went to Colorado with him. He had one of those mother's who would put... It was totally unknown to me, the kind of life that they led. And maybe I... But she would write up the schedule for the day the night before and put it on the fridge. So like, 9:00 to 9:15, we'll wash our faces and hands, 9:15 to quarter to 10 we'll eat breakfast, quarter to 10 we'll get in the car, then quarter to 10 'til 11:15 we'll drive to Pikes Peak, where I was terrified to be on Pikes Peak. I'm always afraid of heights. But anyway... So anyway, I came back from that, and it was really dreadful and I was just depressed. MW: And I think a lot of 18 and 19-year-olds are depressed 'cause we don't know who we are or what we are even and where we might end up. And I was just lying down, and I had quit my job at the arcade because that was so depressing. [laughter] It was the cheapest job at a shop in town, and they were always selling stuff from fire sales in Montreal. And Mr. Murphy had me on the PA saying, "Now upstairs in our Men's Department, out they go while they last," like [laughter] just so depressing. I just, you know... And actually Mr. Murphy picked me up in the car after I got a job at CBC and said, "And think of it, I gave you your start." [laughter] RO: Now you've just passed over that big link that while you were lying on the sofa, you heard an announcement that they were looking... MW: Thats right. I heard an announcement watching Coronation Street, and that was when... Do you remember those two who were on Coronation Street, the little woman and then the woman, the bigger woman who wore the net, Ena and... Who were they? [background conversation] MW: I love them. What? S?: Minnie Caldwell. S?: And Ena Sharples. MW: Yes. Weren't they fantastic? I love them. Anyways, so I was addicted to Coronation Street then. I was lying on the sofa and there came an announcement that they were looking for a person to do a summer replacement show at CBC radio, which just happened to be down the street from where I lived with my Aunt May. And everybody was kind of worried about me. We didn't believe in psychiatrists or mental health, or anything like that; at the time, nobody did. But Aunt May would often, sort of, look at me and go... [laughter] "Do you think you need to see anyone, honey?" like that. [laughter] MW: And so anyway, I... Fully knowing I would never get the job, I went down and I got the job because I was so relaxed. I really was like totally relaxed. Then I got the job and completely tensed up, of course. We never got any mail. I was on all summer from 10 o'clock to 11 o'clock in the morning. The only mail we ever got was, a man wrote in and said, "Who is the mad giggler on from 10:00 to 11:00 in the morning?" And that was me. But I was so nervous. And we had somebody named John Fleet who was the producer. And he was constantly... My... he would say, "Fleet, as in street, not as in enema." But he was more like Fleet as in enema. [laughter] He was constantly saying... He was constantly threating to fire me unless I stopped giggling and asked... Behaved in some more reasonable way. So anyway, that was a great summer except it was a terrible failure too. [laughter] RO: But didn't somebody notice you and want you to do stuff? RO: And then somebody... Dudley Cox called me up and asked me to play the queen in this stage show that he'd written. And they were doing it in the basement at the Arts and Culture Centre. I mean, I think the basement seats 10 people or something. I went in there and I was a terrible queen. I had a great voice, but I couldn't do it because it was so humiliating to do this thing. And so I was constantly being kept... And then he started a company, the first Newfoundland sort of semiprofessional, $40 a week and all the crow pie you could eat [chuckle] in the summer. I went out with a bunch of people who I ended up working with in CODCO, Andy Jones, Cathy Jones, Diane Olsen, Tommy Sexton, Greg Malone. We were on the road, and Bob Joy, doing the Wizard of Oz and... Oh, this English farce. I was Penelope. There was a bishop. Oh, I don't remember. RO: See How They Run? MW: See How They Run, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. RO: I'm not so bad. MW: No, you're great. RO: Okay. [laughter] MW: But the Wizard of Oz, we would do the children show in the day and we would go to... Like, I remember being down at the Saint Lawrence School and children in Newfoundland... Really, people hadn't been out there. We went to places where people had only seen their cousins or other people up on stage on Saint Patty's night dancing and doing skits and stuff like that. So when we came in, people were terrified of Dorothy. Children had to be taken out when Toto... [laughter] When Toto came on, they were so terrified. And Dudley made me come through the audience in my long, black witch's thing with, you know, just standard. And children... Like one kid in Saint Lawrence stepped on my dress and went, "I'm gonna beat the bearings out of you!" Like, they were not a bit afraid of me at all. Like, it was like... So once again, just a big fat failure. [laughter] But then I got in with that crowd... RO: But how did they leap from that to doing the comedy of CODCO? MW: Oh, no. People were going to Toronto to try to get work. And so I thought, well maybe I'll try to get in to Ryerson. 'Cause I really wanted to go to Ryerson to do journalism but I didn't feel I had the marks or... Even though by that point I was 21 and I'd already done a show in Newfoundland. We had a supper-hour show and I did the research for the supper-hour show. You know, the magazine after the news, I did the research. I did a really bad job on that too. The guy who had given me the job called me into the office one day. Robin, he was a fabulous guy. He said, "Mary, 11 o'clock, okay; 12 o'clock, sort of acceptable; 2 o'clock, we can't go there." I was coming in at 2wo o'clock 'cause really there was nothing for me to do. It was like one of those made up jobs. MW: But I was in a terrible, violent relationship at that time. And so I would just stay in bed for days and days and days. I was depressed. You know what I mean? I really was. I don't know how... You know how things happen and you don't know... Like it's not like it is on TV and people tell you how to do things and how you can do it. And sometimes I guess I'm just lucky. Everybody was going to Toronto and I thought, "I'll go." And then that got me away from that relationship which I couldn't get away from, myself because... People always get, "Why don't women leave?" And it's like, "Well, because usually they just blow your head off then in the Walmart thing. That's one of the reasons they don't leave." And I didn't have any... I had my own job. I had no children. You know what I mean? I was so ashamed of that I didn't leave. It is like the Stockholm Syndrome. You just become a prisoner in a way. And so anyway, I got out and came up to Toronto. Toronto the good, I always think, and went to Ryerson, got into Ryerson, auditioned for the Ryerson... Really bad at that too, I gotta say. The teachers had to come up and hold my hand while I did the Shakespeare thing 'cause I was so nervous. I'm very nervous. Anyway, got into Ryerson and then everybody else... MW: Paul Thompson with Theatre Passe Muraille, Tommy Sexton and Diane Olsen went to him and auditioned for a show called, "Under the Greywacke" which was about a mining town in Cobourg, maybe Ontario. And he said, "Here's $300 bucks go do a show about your own... " With that kind of money, like who could say no? [laughter] So we wrote a show about Newfoundland called, "Caught on a Stick" which kind of made fun of the notion that people had, you know, those National Film Board films about Newfoundland, about the horny-handed fisher folk and how good they were, and kind and simple-minded. Simple in the best kind of way but actually simple-minded. And so we sort of sent that up and also, we sent up... Back in 1973-1974, people in Ontario would actually fall down laughing in the elevator if you just said you were from Newfoundland. It was like... [laughter] And so we found that a bit upsetting, personally, you know. And so we tried to make fun of that too and so we did... And one of Richard's... Oh, they were nicer then, the... [laughter] They're all dead now, all the nice critics. [laughter] RO: That's what happens to them. [laughter] MW: Anyway, somebody gave us... We got great reviews. You know we took over Tarragon after. RO: Okay. Glass... No, Urjo. MW: Urjo Kareda gave us a fabulous review and said people were rolling in the aisles with cognistic and stuff like that. And then we went... Mr. Hepburn said that we toured Newfoundland, but we toured all over the country. We were out to Vancouver. We were fairly successful, considering. And we came to Toronto a lot and we toured. We would go to fabulous places like Petrolia. [laughter] It was good. It was good. And then we broke up in 1986 because we really could not stand to be in each other's company any longer. [laughter] That happens to all comedy troupes apparently. When you start young... I mean it's just like you go in like you're... If you're the middle child, you're always the middle child. If you go to Thanksgiving dinner... That's what it's like if you're the person who doesn't, you know... That's the role you have to play and you're forced, you know. So we just got sick of each other in '86 and we went on to do a bunch of other stuff. No, that wasn't '86 that was '76, sorry. Then in '86 we came back together to do a television show which we, then, were on TV doing 'til '92. MW: And in '92, I didn't get together with Rick Mercer. I got together with Michael Donovan at Salter Street Films and I said, "I'd like to do a television show that makes fun of the news." It wasn't like, "Oh, my God, how did she ever come up with that idea?" I based it entirely on that show that I loved when I was depressed and watching TV called, "That Was The Week That Was." Remember the British show? I wanted us to have a singer too. So I knew Rick just lived up the street from me. Cathy, I'd worked with for 30 years. Tommy just lived down the street. So I'd already asked them if they would be in it. And who's the guy who ran CBC then? He then went on to run CTV. RO: Ivan Fecan. MW: Ivan Fecan was looking for that kind of show. And so in real CBC way, they brought the Royal Canadian Air Farce who did the show too, the same show. We basically did the same show. "This Hour Has 22 Minutes" on at the same time of the same year we started in 1992, we were like warring news shows. Anyway, it was grace. I mean we just got six first. Then people liked the show and it just happened to work. And it happened to be... We came in at the same time as the liberals. And remember the... I mean the conservatives always say that everybody, you know, that artists and comedians and stuff, and satirists pick on them. But we picked on the liberals endlessly because remember they had the Red Book? And they made all those promises and they never kept one, [laughter] not one promise! Right? Anyway... One, maybe one, okay, one maybe. [laughter] RO: Something that we talked about a little... A couple years ago when we were on this, is that while your professional life was going well, personally you had to get through a lot of stuff. You said that, by your own admission, you stopped drinking just around the time of "This Hour." And you said it was a good thing 'cause you never could have done that. Right? MW: Oh, no, 'cause we had started off with nothing every week on Monday and then we would create a show for Friday. The first couple of years, we didn't have any writers. There was just the four of us. We were doing all the writing. I think in year three we got one writer. The first year we only had one wig too. But... [laughter] Bad, bad. But so, you know what I mean, you couldn't drink the way that I was drinking and do it. But I had given up drinking in October of 1992, the 31st of October 1992, not that I remember. RO: No. [laughter] MW: But that was the best thing. Two best things I ever did: One was I adopted my son, Jesse Cox; and the second best thing I ever did was to give up drinking. Because I just... You know, it's like the things that were wrong about my life and the things that, you know... You know, we all have things that are wrong in our lives, right? But if you're drinking, you don't let them go. Like, I would be up a bottle of scotch and sobbing about Mom giving me away every night, every night! You can imagine how people say, "Let's have Mary over and have a few drinks with her. [laughter] It'll be a ball" But you know, you are stuck in that place. Like, resentment is a big thing with people who drink alcoholically. And resentment is, of course, from the French "sentir" to feel and it means to re-feel. And so I could re-feel, with a bottle of scotch in me, the sadness of being eight months old and being given away. You know what I mean? MW: Every time I was, fabulous, what a life, oh. [laughter] It was fabulous. I loved it. RO: You had a great observation about yourself. You were talking about in your resentment days, you always used to complain about how your mother one day melted a chocolate bar. This is great. Tell people this, 'cause you realized it wasn't... MW: Oh, yeah. Like, my mother, who I just really hated but loved desperately and really wanted her to love me. Everybody wants their mother to love them. And my mother was an extraordinary person. I was reading something I wrote about her today, like I wanted to be just like her. She was really quick-witted and she loved dancing and she loved to have a few drinks and she was just amazing, except... She loved everything. She loved life. And like I had written down, it seems the only thing she didn't love apparently was me, which was hard... Harsh. But my mother... So I hated everything about her. So on Sundays, when I used to stay with them occasionally... They moved up around the bay when I was 11. And so then when I was 12, Mom and Dad came to town together, which may be the only thing they ever did together in their whole life. Of course, they must have... I guess at some point. [laughter] MW: Perhaps, perhaps, who knows? But they picked me up and so I spent a couple of weeks with them in the summer. And I remember my mother used to make Duncan Hines chocolate cake. And then she had a shop and she'd melt dairy milk bars and put that as the icing, and I'd think "You can't even make icing." [laughter] That is how low she is. First, it's a Duncan Hines, it's a box, cake mix, and then she melts chocolate bars. And only about 10 years into being sober, I thought "Oh, my God. She would actually put chocolate bars, melted chocolate bars on the top of the cake. That's amazing." [laughter] But I couldn't see, I was so blinded to everything because I always wanted things to be the way that I wanted them to be, and if they were not that way, then forget it. Yeah, I am, yeah. RO: So, I mean, you're rolling along, life is going well, you've got this hit TV series, but then you guys eventually split up, right? You went different ways and things. MW: In CODCO? RO: No, in This Hour now. MW: Hour, oh, yeah. Rick left first because there was a big coup and they were going to just drop This Hour Has 22 Minutes and just do the Rick Show, which would be... First of all, it would be out of Toronto, and Toronto's always trying to take control of everything, as you know, Richard. RO: I know. [chuckle] 0:26:29 MW: And the CBC goes back and forth between being enormously centrist, which is where it is now, and then back to being regional. And it seems to me, of course you may think that this is just self serving, that when it's more regional that's when it's at it's strongest because people in Toronto forever have had so many choices of things to watch. Whereas in Newfoundland, we only had the CBC and NTV and North... In the North there is not... You know what I mean? So we are really the CBC's audience in a sense, not Vancouver, not Urban Toronto, not Urban Vancouver but us, the people in the hinterlands. It's like we are the hinterland who's who. [chuckle] MW: But Rick left and so... But then that didn't happen because Michael... I believe Michael's stories and I believe it is because he is brave and true and fights the good fight, and that's Michael Donovan who's our producer on This Hour Has 22 Minutes. And then I left to do a series that I dearly love and that some people across the country love too, called "Hatching, Matching, and Dispatching," which... [chuckle] Thank you. I have to agree, it's the... In Newfoundland and some places in Northern Ontario, we've got some mail from people. And I think in rural areas, sometimes it's left to one family to take care of the ambulance service, the funeral parlour and the wedding hall. And the Fureys in this fictional town in Newfoundland, they did that. So they hatched, they matched and they dispatched, right? And I just love that show. Mark McKinney was on it. He's so funny. Shaun Majumder, so funny, oh, just people, Joel Hynes and Sherry White and Adriana Maggs, and just extraordinary people were on that show. And... But when we did six, and then the people at the top at CBC changed, and there were new people at the top, and the new people at the top didn't care for us. And even the people who cared for us said that "Hatching, Matching, and Dispatching" was the best cable show that it'd ever been made for. [chuckle] MW: Well, once there was bad language in it, an enormous amount of bad language which we just put in assuming that the CBC would not run it. You know what I mean? Go beep beep, like the Trailer Park Boys, right? And then somebody at the CBC, and I believe they did it on purpose, not against us but just that they did it as a lark, they put the whole thing on with everything in it, every word, the see-you-next-Tuesday word, [laughter] the MFer word, the CSer word, oh, everything, just out. Like, I was at home going, "Oh, my God! Oh, my God! This is terrible!" [chuckle] MW: But, yeah, yeah, yeah. But anyway, and I did a film based on a play that a dear friend of mine wrote, Ray Guy, who we lost this year, possibly the funniest man... Definitely the funniest man in Newfoundland, possibly the funniest man in the country I think but never had a broad audience, really, really an extraordinary man. And he wrote this play called "Young Triffie's Been Made Away With." And I always wanted to turn it into a film. Now, I should have known, of course, my husband who grew up in Mississauga, we were writing the thing. And it opens with a young girl, 12, washed up on the beach and she's been stabbed. And that's the opening. It's a comedy. [laughter] And she's a little girl from the village who is simple-minded. And my husband said, "Oh... " My Mississauga husband said, "Oh, I don't know, a little simple-minded girl, I'm not finding that, that funny." I'm going, "Oh, okay, just never mind... Never mind you." So, yeah, in essence there's a dark edge to humour in Newfoundland and that perhaps doesn't spread as much across the country. Because Liam Lacey and Rick Groen, who I always think when they give a bad review to any film it's bound to be a blockbuster, but they actually... I'm the only film... 'Young Tribute' it was called. I think we may be the only film that got no stars, absolutely no stars whatsoever, none, no stars. RO: No even I didn't do that to you. MW: No, no, no, I know. And so, anyway, we got no stars. So that went no where. [chuckle] So that's why I left, because I had this urge to do stuff on my own, to be more... I may have been quite wrong there. But... RO: But then you start to edge back to the fold. It's time to talk about the creation of The Warrior Princess. Don't you think? MW: Oh, yes. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. RO: Do you wanna hear about the... Yup, I think this is the... [applause] MW: Well you know, it's really so humiliating and embarrassing to admit it, how The Warrior Princess came along because, remember the woman who used to do that show on TV who had the bangs like that? I had bangs exactly like that at the time and I remember saying to Geoff D'Eon, I went, "Why don't we just do a skit where I'm playing her?" And he said, "Why don't we do... Use that for something... Like, let's try it out on the hill?" And so we did, and it really worked. Because before then, I had been ambushing people as myself, dressed up with make-up on and looking quite good, if I do say so myself. And I... It was terrible because when you're looking good like that, you're always worried that you're not looking good. That's a thing that female comedians sometimes fall into if they're really good looking comedians, unlike myself, is they wonder... Like Mary Tyler Moore didn't obviously but some do. They... It's that problem of woman as object as opposed to as subject, right? Like, you're thinking, "How do I look? Is my make-up on right?" And you're not doing the comedy like... And you're embarrassed to be broad or ask the difficult question because you wanna be liked. MW: It's like I always say, Leona Helmsley went to jail for being a bitch really because all the staff got up on the thing and said, "Yes, Your Honor, she was really mean to us, the maids." And that's why they gave her federal time because she didn't really do anything other than that. And so with women, you're not supposed to be... But if you're in a ridiculous gold, blue encrusted costume waving a plastic toy, a sword from Toys R' Us above your head, I mean, it gives you a certain amount of, you're already down so low, [laughter] you just think, "Okay." [chuckle] 'Cause I really used to be embarrassed in Ottawa when we'd be... We would go to the scrums when people... That was back in the old days when there was a democracy and there used to be... [laughter] There are no scrums... [applause] MW: There are no scrums anymore. But with... And all the journalists who would be there from CTV in their Burberry jackets and I would be there in that ridiculous costume. And I'd feel so humiliated. And I would feel so embarrassed and shy to talk to Paul Martin or whoever it was at the time. But then I would just realize that I already was so humiliated that I might as well go for it. You know what I mean? And it gave me a sense of freedom that I didn't... I didn't... It wasn't like I planned that. I didn't plan on being ashamed and humiliated. But it really helped me to feel like, well, I'm just gonna say it now because I'm already... What are they gonna do? Laugh at me? [laughter] Call 911? Oh, I don't think so. [applause] RO: Now forgive me for not knowing this, but had you created Marg before the Princess? Or did you do the Princess and then you filled in Marg around her? MW: No, Marg existed long before the Princess. Marg was in bed because when we started This Hour Has 22 Minutes, my back gave out. I had to go in for back surgery. So we did Marg from bed, but she's already been on the radio in her... Well, not that anybody could see her 'cause it was the radio, right? But she was just one of those women who went around in her housecoat all the time with all her gold jewelry on exactly like my sister, Loll. But don't tell Loll. And like, Loll never gets dressed. She goes... And when I used to be driving Jesse to school, she would say, "Why are you putting on... Just... You got your pyjamas on. Just go in your pyjamas." Like she... She doesn't like to get dressed, but she likes to be fully bejewelled all the time. And so Marg was sort of like that. And then The Princess Warrior was just part of Marg's character. RO: Right, okay. MW: It gave her courage to do that. You know what I mean? It gave her the courage that she didn't have as somebody in her housecoat, yup. RO: Okay. Now speaking of courage, you yourself have had to deal with macular degeneration, and you've been very brave, and you've done well with it. But did you ever have a couple of moments where you thought, "I might be going into it."? MW: A couple, oh, my God. Yeah, thank you. This lady, we're connected. A couple, I just did nothing. But here's the good thing, I was going out with this young fellow at the time and he... He actually said this. This is... I wrote a short story about it. Nobody's ever published it. I just don't understand why. But anyway, I said, "You can't break up with me now. I'm going blind." He said, "Well, it's always something isn't it?" [laughter] RO: That's not supposed to happen to cougars. [chuckle] MW: So I was so devastated that Dorian left me. I was down at St. Louis having the eye surgery and stuff like that, and of course, I was terrified too. But the edge of being terrified about going blind almost got taken off by the edge of being dumped by this young fellow. You know what I mean? And so, in a way, it's funny the things that are blessings, isn't it? The things that seemed the worst, you look back on and you go, "Oh, yeah, that really helped me get through that macular degeneration there." So, anyway, the worst was my doctor said there's no hope, that it's degenerating in the middle. "I'll send you to Halifax, to Dr. O'Brien." Dr. O'Brien came in and said, "Oh, Mary Walsh. I've got some really bad news for you. There's really nothing we can do for you." He said, "But if it was my eye, I'd take it down to Mathew Thomas at the Barnes Retinal Institute in St. Louis." MW: In St. Louis, everybody is this big, [laughter] really, seriously. When they say 12 people on the elevator, they don't mean 12 people from St. Louis. [laughter] So I went down there and they did actual surgery on my eye. They cut it open and they took out the macula and they peeled back the layers and then they took out the offending... And it was experimental surgery that Mathew Thomas, this extraordinary man, was doing and it was successful in 40% of the cases. And it was successful. And then I had to have it again, I had to go back to St. Louis and have it again because at four years later... MW: But the terrible thing was then I actually saw the black... 'Cause they had to sew up my eye and I actually saw it 'cause they didn't put me out, because I didn't wanna go under 'cause I had been under a couple of times. And I don't know what it is, but when I go under, something happens to me and then I'm terrified. I'm extraordinarily fearful for months after. I wake... I come to, terrified and then it keeps on going. So I really didn't wanna do it. But one thing I never wanna see again is the needle going through my eye. Oh, needle... Putting needles in your eye is like, "Oh... Oh... " [laughter] Anyway, so, yeah, I had a lot of that moment with the macular degeneration. And reading, acting, they don't even want old actresses, let alone old blind actresses. [laughter] There is very little chance, very little chance. Yeah, so that was hard. Yeah. RO: You called your show, "Dancing With Rage", right? MW: Yes. RO: And Warrior Princess has fare bit of rage going on in there. Are you channelling what has happened to you that you're not happy about or... MW: Well, when you drink, there is a certain amount of anger that you... Even though those nice drinkers, if they keep on drinking long enough, they will come to the same place. I always say, addiction always leads to the same place, rage and pooping in your pants, really. All addictions, even if you're addicted to those slots 'cause then you wear those diapers, so that you don't lose the winning. So, I know, nobody wants to hear this. These are insights I have that I shouldn't be sharing. RO: That's alright. Everybody wants to hear it. [laughter] MW: But like I had a lot of anger about everything, right? And also, one of the things about being an addict is you often feel really sorry for yourself all the time, like everything. You think, "I'm out here on this awful, dark plane and the wind whistling around me. Everybody else is in a cozy little house. They're all together." You know what I mean? And so you think, "Only me, only me." Everything that happens, you go, "Oh, this would only happen to me, of course." And so you're full of anger and resentment. And one of the things that they say in programs that help people with, is that anger is a thing that alcoholics and addicts cannot afford to have. And so I feel like doing the show, Dancing With Rage, really helped me to a certain extent. Because giving up liquor, I didn't really get out of the anger, right? You know what I mean? I was still there with it. MW: And I really feel like, even though Richard gave me such a bad review and I'm still angry with him about that, I really feel like doing the show was very cathartic. Like, audiences don't have to care one iota or one josh that things are cathartic for the artist because that's your own business. And please, don't let them be telling us about it because... But to me, I really felt, I got it out there. Though I still go into huge rants the other day about... I just could not believe Dindo Maestro. It's like somebody said today in a letter that the next time the Prime Minister plays the piano, he should play "I've Got Friends In Low Places" because... [laughter] I mean, Bruce Carson, every single person, they're all... People are waiting to be extradited from Panama, that his friend, Bruce Carson, is up on... All the senator... It's just amazing. Like, if it was anybody else, you think, "I don't think he should be running the Kentucky Fried Chicken place 'cause all the people he hires are thieves and they can't cook." [applause] RO: Do you think going into politics would be a channel for your rage? MW: No, I don't because Jack Layton actually came to me a couple of times. I'm not actually an NDP. People keep thinking I'm NDP, but I'm not actually. I'd like to be an NDP, but I just can't stand the... But you know, this is a terrible, terrible thing to say and please forgive me for saying it. It used to get right up on my last nerve seeing Olivia and Jack ride around on that double bicycle. I used to think, I hate those people." [laughter] But I don't hate the NDP. I love the NDP and I love Tommy Douglas and I love everything the NDP stands for. But I'm more one of those people in the middle. Like, I'd like to take all the stuff from the NDP, and I'd take all the stuff from the thing, and I guess I'm a small L liberal is what I am. I'm not really a big L liberal because I'm a satirist, so I'm not really... RO: Right. MW: But Jack Layton did come to me a couple of years before, you know, before he got sick, and he asked me if I would run in Newfoundland. And he asked me a couple of different times when a couple of different seats came up. And, you know, I just know... Well, first of all, just to say the worst thing about myself, I'd just be one of those people who go, "And now they're saying that about me?" [laughter] "I put in 80 hours last week and nobody mentions that! Nobody!" And so I would definitely be [laughter] a big sooky baby. You know what I mean? "I cannot believe they're saying that!" And I just am not drawn. I mean, I'm drawn to political... You know, to politics. I'm very interested in it. I... You know, like Winston Churchill said, "Democracy is such a shitty system, but it's the best one." You know, he didn't say shitty actually, but... RO: No. [laughter] MW: He already ever said "shitty." RO: No. He said, "Shitty." [laughter] MW: But the best one we have and so... But as far as me serving... And women in politics, I mean, it is ridiculous the way women are treated in politics in this country and in all countries. It is... [applause] MW: You know, and then they go, "It's the same... Why don't women leave abusive husbands? Why aren't women running for politics?" Well, the answers are fairly obvious. You know, they are right there. And then the people who do run like, I mean, the people... Like, you think about Margaret Thatcher and you think about Indira Gandhi and the Emergency. I mean, there's a lot of... Not a lot but the couple of ones who really made it, really did some really bad stuff that the countries... RO: What do you think Hillary Clinton would be like? MW: I don't know. I kind of... I like both the Clintons really. I'm really attracted to them. [laughter] I mean, I don't wanna sleep with them. You know what I mean? But they just attracted me as people and so I don't know. I mean, she'd have a... Oh, my God, can you imagine being in with those people? I mean, now in the States, they wanna do... They want women to have intra-vaginal ultrasounds, you know? You know what I mean? If you... Oh, my God! We're going back. So somebody asked the question the other day, the conservatives, not just our conservatives but the conservatives across the world, what are they conserving? They're not conserving the environment. They're not conserving oil. They're not conserving our... What are they called, that you take out of the ground? Resources, natural resources. They're not conserving rights. What are they conserving? They're conserving privilege. That's it, privilege for the few. I saw... You should watch it. [applause] MW: It was the funniest thing I've ever seen and at the same time, the most appalling. It was back when Monty Python was on BBC, and I don't remember what they talked about, but they had the Archbishop of Cambridge and Malcolm Muggeridge on with John Cleese and Eric Idle. And as John Cleese said, "It's like a sketch anyway." RO: Yeah. MW: But Malcolm Muggeridge and the Archbishop of Cambridge felt themselves so superior to these two that, honestly, the smug, self-righteousness with which they answer these queries. John Cleese was saying things like, " Well, I mean, if we believe in Jesus, and we do, and He's all powerful and all knowing and omniscient and things, do you think He really cares if I say... If I do... Life of Brian, it was about Life of Brian. And Malcolm Muggeridge and the Archbishop of Cambridge were absolutely... It was like that privilege that they were born to, that they felt that they deserved in very single way absolute way was theirs, and that these people, they had no right to speak of the things that the Archbishop of Cambridge was speaking of. And so things changed after that. Things were changing at that time. And it seems like the conservatives want to go back to that. They want to go back to there being a 1% that is given... That is born into privilege, that has all the power, all the money, all the everything, and everybody else really shouldn't be speaking about whatever it is that they... You know? That's really the way that it seems to be. That's what they're conserving. 'Cause it's not anything else, is it? RO: No. MW: No. No. RO: Let's have some questions, I think, 'cause we're getting into our time. MW: Oh, yeah. RO: Anybody would like to dare ask Mary something? [laughter] I survived. You can do it. [laughter] MW: So far. RO: So far. S?: You have a wife. [chuckle] S?: Who is... Who is the person or professional who inspires you? And who is your muse? MW: Yeah. You know, I... That's interesting. I find Andrea Martin and Catherine O'Hara and... [applause] MW: And Cathy Jones are all very inspiring. And then that woman who made the Bridesmaids film, and I didn't even know about her 'til I saw that movie, that was very inspiring. And, of course, Carol Burnett and Mary Tyler Moore, I love Mary Tyler Moore. I didn't think of Mary Tyler Moore... Like I thought, really seriously, I thought Mary Tyler Moore was my friend. That we were friends. [laughter] And that it was only a matter of time till I'd be living there with Mary in that apartment building. [laughter] And Richard Pryor, maybe the funniest man who ever lived and who drew breath on the face of the earth, and then Andy Jones, who when we went on that tour, Andy actually... Like my family is very funny and sarcastic and mean, but cutting. And I... That's the kind of humour that I knew about. And then Andy had Newfoundland material that was like material... Like Monty Python and it was like it opened up a whole... Like, lights went on and I thought, "Oh, I didn't... I had never even... " I hadn't even had the imagination to imagine that we would be able to do that sort of stuff. Right? We used our experience to write comedic stuff and... So he was a massive inspiration to all of us actually. Yeah. Boom. RO: Thank you. Yes, ma'am. S?: Hi there. I have two questions, just one brief one. You mentioned something about the US and inter-vaginal ultrasounds and I lost that point. And the second one was, just because you've been at this for a while, Canada in terms of political satire, have you noticed any shifts across... Regionally or even just over time in terms of Canadians wanting that, desiring it, maybe not being as interested in it? MW: I guess, there doesn't... We seem to be very mild-mannered these days, as the world is. It's a... I guess there's going to be a turn and things will change. But we've been in a very repressive kind of place for a long time, where people are afraid to say anything because they come back at you so hard. Right? Like the head of the nuclear... Look at all the people that have been fired in government for speaking up, for saying, "This is not right. This is not safe. We shouldn't be doing this." They're gone. You know what I mean? So people are nervous. So nerve... MW: That kind of nervousness is not a great atmosphere for satire, right? Like, there's gotta be... People are afraid and so I think that people will stop being afraid. It just really struck me how... Like, I did something... I just wanna... Before I call other people afraid or talk about other people's lack of courage, I wanna say that, I did something when the the prime minister was running and he was wearing those fluffy blue sweaters, and I did something and I put it on You Tube. I did two or three things as Marg, myself and I put them out. Oh, my God. And then I read the things that people wrote about me, like the great conservative hate machine got on the go. And it was... I didn't know... I mean, people called me... Well as my niece used to say, "Aunt, he called us the biggest kind of hateous. And we went, "W's, Wanda, W's." "Oh, oh, oh, right, W's," and that sort of thing. And threatened me and threatened my son, and said bad things about my son. And it was like, oh, it was so appalling that I thought, "Yeah, well I won't be doing that again." You know what I mean? I really... I was totally lacking in courage and backed right off because I felt personally threatened. And they said about where I lived and they talked about my drinking and you know what I mean? And I thought this is really scary. MW: And so in that... I understand, but I think that things are changing and will come back to just saying, "This is enough now." You guys, you can't just answer three questions from three journalists that you picked out who happen to... You have to be answerable because we are still in a democracy and you can't just keep proroguing. But of course, it worked so well. Remember the Afghan detainee? Did anybody ever mention the Afghan detainee scandal after that proroguing ever again? Did we ever hear anything else about it? Never. RO: No. MW: No. Did that answer... S?: It was a two part. The first part though? MW: Oh, oh, that wasn't... RO: The intra-vaginal ultrasound. MW: Intra-vaginal ultrasound. Well, there was that thing that because... They can't kind of get rid of the Roe v Wade, they're not being able to knock that down. So they do things, like in Arizona, women have to go in and they have to watch an abortion, then they have to have an inter-vaginal ultrasound, then they have to... You know what I mean? It's like, if you sold somebody condoms, they'd have to have... It would be totally unacceptable to do an inter... You know... RO: Yes. [laughter] MW: Ultrasound. But women, we've been driven back and back and back in this new conservative world we live in. What rights we fought so hard to get, we've let slip back, and it's kind of scary. And sometimes things go so far, like Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point, that you come to a tipping point and there is no going back. And sometimes that's frightening. Anyway, I hope that... Yeah, thank you. RO: Thank you. S?: I remember with great fondness when the Warrior Princess surprised Jeremy Irons. I'm wondering if you have a favourite moment like that as the Warrior Princess? MW: Yeah. Jeremy Irons is a really sweet guy I must say, really nice. But, no, I like doing that guy... Doing... [laughter] Vince Gillis or whatever his name was, I liked that because I said, "Was it hard for you on the road. If I was on the road with you, would it be hard for me?" You know what I mean? And it was just like that kind of... And that was funny. And he didn't get it all. And then he got it... [laughter] And then he got it and he was like... But I always enjoyed Jean Chretien because Jean Chretien... I tell this joke and please forgive me, I won't say the bad word, but I tell this joke, it's a Newfoundland joke. It's about this man who is going out looking for a horse. And he goes down to Ferryland and he sees this beautiful white horse in a field by the ocean, and it's an empty field except for one tree. And so he finds the farmer and he says to the farmer, "I'd like to buy that horse." And the farmer says, "Sure." And so he calls Dobbin up and Dobbin comes running across the field and boom, whacks himself right in the head. And the guy from St. Johns goes to the farmer, "You were trying to sell me a blind horse." And buddy says, "No." He says, "Dobbin's not blind," he said, "He just don't give a fuck." [laughter] MW: And that's not seen as an admirable quality in other places, but it's highly regarded in Newfoundland. [laughter] And I always felt that Jean Chretien had a little bit of that because he'd been through so much. You know what I mean? He had come through so much and he felt comfortable with himself. So when you were going to ambush him, even if you screwed up, he was going to do something funny anyway, so he was great. [laughter] RO: Any other questions? No other questions? Yes. S?: I would like to nominate you for next Mayor. [applause] MW: What I will never understand is... But I guess they re-voted Marion-what's-his-name in after he got caught smoking crack on camera in Washington. So obviously, there's something irresistible about crack-smokers. [laughter] They said the other day that Ford was up 50% in his popularity. But of course, it is a year 'til 2015, and a year is an enormous amount of time. And so we can only hope and pray that things will change before then, right? RO: Now, it's interesting, we were talking about the ambush of Mr. Ford. And you said that you actually thought he looked scared or not with it or didn't know what was going on, right? [laughter] I'm looking for the nice words to use. MW: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [laughter] Well, it was so alarming being with him because he was so... He didn't seem to be... Like you know you when you're with Mike Harris, it's like not being with anyone because [laughter] he's so buried deep within these layers of whoever it is. It's the same with Ralph Klein and the same with the Prime Minister. But with Ford, he seemed to be totally out of control. You know what I mean? And so you were getting kind of work... 'Cause you're really up close and personal with him so I... And I tell you this story because I did a really bad job on that ambush. Because he alarmed me so much and I was so frightened of him that I said the same thing over and over again, I kept going, "But I came up all the way from Newfoundland to help you." And if Mr. Ford had not called 911, that would never have gotten on the air. It would've just disappeared because the people at This Hour Has 22 Minutes are not interested in their people looking stupid. You know what I mean? And so it would never have gotten on the air. MW: So I keep thinking over and over again that Mr. Ford just is one of those people who is begging, begging, he is sweating blood, he's begging somebody to remove that mantel of the mayor from his... To take this cup, as Jesus begged His Father, [laughter] "To remove this cup from me," because everything he does seems to be, "Oh, please, oh, please," but no, no, it's like he's a... RO: Like we always say, it's, "Stop me before I kill again," that one. MW: Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think he really is, though he doesn't know what else to do except to act as if... When he's talking, as if he's going... He wants to be the mayor, but I believe every part of him is just begging to have this gone and over with. What? [laughter] What? S?: Who will help him? MW: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Who will help him? RO: I remember when we were chatting about it, you said that you actually had some really good stuff that you wanted to say to him that you had written... Thought out and you got frustrated. And one of your lines I loved was, "Put the plug in the jug, get rid of Doug". MW: Yeah, yeah, yeah. RO: That was gonna be your advice. [laughter] MW: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Another interesting thing, and I think that maybe people don't think about this, but that same day that he called 911, there was a 911 call again that night, a domestic call. And so they... It's very... He's living a very troubled life. I had never wanted to go back and... It's like, you know, what the say, like three things are really bad, kicking a dead guy, eating too much lobster and drinking too much champagne. [chuckle] So even though Mayor Ford is not dead, it did seem like I got the feeling from him that he was not in a great place in his life. You know what I mean? And then if you're not in a great place in your life then you shouldn't be running a great city, should you? No, no, no. [applause] RO: I don't want Mayor Ford to be the last subject here, so let me ask you... MW: No, no, no. And I'm not even gonna make a crack about Rob Ford. [laughter] RO: Who would Marg like to go after who she's never gone after? MW: Hell, I have gone after Prime Minister... S?: What's his name? [laughter] MW: Steve, the Cry Minister, I've gone after the Cry Minister but I would like to do it again, and I don't know how to do it because, of course, they're not going to let that happen. So it will have to be a real ambush and, of course, the RCMP are there. And remember a few years ago, Jerry did this character on This Hour Has 22 Minutes, The Single Girl. And she stood up at a thing like this with the Cry Minister and the RCMP took her out in handcuffs, not a joke. And then... I mean, they really did. So it's a very iffy kind of... But that'd be great. As long as they kept shooting, it'd be fabulous. RO: Alright. [laughter] MW: But so this year, that is my quest, this year, is to finish my novel because I've owed Harper Collins now this novel for three years and they're getting... I think they've lost interest in me... [laughter] To finish that novel and to ambush the Cry Minister, yeah. [applause] RO: And Mary, we wish you all the best with all of that. MW: Thank you, thank you. RO: Thank you. Mary Walsh. MW: Thank you. Thank you so much. [applause]

Background and education

Mary Williams Walsh was born in Wausau, Wisconsin, in 1955.[1] She graduated from the University of Wisconsin in 1979 with degrees in French and English. Walsh was a Walter Bagehot Fellow in economics and business journalism at Columbia University's Graduate School of Business during the 1982–83 academic year[2] and a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University during the 1998–99 academic year.[3]

She is married with two children and lives in Philadelphia.

Career

Walsh began working as a general assignment reporter at The Wall Street Journal in 1983 and was a foreign correspondent for the Journal from 1985 to 1989, reporting from Latin America and South and Southeast Asia. From 1989 to 1998 Walsh was a foreign correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, reporting from various locations in Europe, Africa and North America. Her reports from Europe for the Los Angeles Times received the Overseas Press Club of America citation for excellence in 1995.

In 2000, Walsh became a reporter for the business/financial desk of The New York Times. Her 2002 reports with Walt Bogdanich and Barry Meier won the George Polk Award for Health Care.[4] The same series of reports was also a finalist for the 2003 Gerald Loeb Award for distinguished business and financial journalism.[5] Her Times reporting on public pensions, with Michael Cooper, won a Society of American Business Editors and Writers award for explanatory journalism in 2011.[6]

References

  1. ^ "Mary Williams Walsh". Gerald Loeb Awards: Past Finalists. UCLA Anderson School of Management. Archived from the original on June 26, 2013. Retrieved May 14, 2013.
  2. ^ Erwin Knoll (May 22, 1990). "Journalistic Jihad" (PDF). The Progressive. pp. 17–22.
  3. ^ "Nieman Foundation Announces 1998-99 Fellows". Harvard University Gazette. Harvard University. May 21, 1998. Archived from the original on April 18, 2016. Retrieved May 1, 2013.
  4. ^ "2002 George Polk Award Winners". George Polk Awards. Long Island University. Retrieved May 14, 2013.
  5. ^ "2003 Finalists". Loeb Awards News. UCLA Anderson School of Management. Retrieved May 14, 2013.
  6. ^ Eric Tsetsi. "SABEW Public Pensions Seminar Speakers June 1-3, 2011". Society of American Business Editors and Writers. Retrieved May 15, 2013.
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