GAMBIER — Celebrity comedienne Marcia Wallace brought her rollicking brand of earthy hilarity to Rosse Hall at Kenyon College Thursday evening. The event, sponsored by Ariel Corp., Kenyon College, First-Knox National Bank and many others, was the first Spirit of Hope Celebrity Lecture, presented by The Foundation for Knox Community Hospital.

The crowd was welcomed by S. Georgia Nugent, president of Kenyon. Bruce White, CEO of KCH, read Wallace’s performance resume: Movies, television sitcoms, the stage, celebrity game shows, secretary Carol Kester of “The Bob Newhart Show” and, for today’s generation, the voice of teacher Mrs. Krabappel on “The Simpsons.” White said Wallace uses the same snappy, self-deprecating, irreverent humor in real life that she uses in performances.

Wallace proved him right. Her message was about breast cancer, specifically early detection through mammograms, physician exams and monthly self-examination, but she got to those points by first making the audience laugh with glee and temporarily forget the seriousness of her message.

Dressed all in black, with spiked, bright red hair, Wallace was at home at the podium.

“I love this area,” she told the audience. “This campus, this town, and I couldn’t be here at a better time. It’s beautiful.”

She called herself “a Midwestern girl,” who grew up in 1950s Iowa and left for New York City on college graduation day. She identified her two best attributes as tenacity and a sense of humor, both learned from her father, who had big dreams that he couldn’t make come true. He would tell her, “No sense looking back. We’re not going that way,” which she borrowed for the title of her inspirational book, “Don’t Look Back, We’re Not Going That Way.”

Her first experience with breast health was in her 20s, a lump caused by a fibroid cystic condition. The physician urged her to have a lumpectomy, with testing done while she was anesthetized. If the lump was judged malignant, the physician would then perform a mastectomy.

“That’s the way it was in those days,” she said. “They called it a ‘frozen section.’ Women woke up all alone in a cold, dark recovery room, without a breast. I refused.”

Wallace continued the uproarious tale by telling how she got a relative who was a doctor to excise the lump, which was placed in a Chinese food container and driven by Wallace’s sister to Des Moines. Her sister told Wallace that she sang to the lump “Begin the Benign.” And it was.

“I decided I was never going to be that scared again,” said Wallace. “If a doctor was going to be in charge of my medical conditions, I was going to be in charge of my health. It was going to be a partnership.”

Life returned to normal and her career soared, but a good relationship was hard to find. Then, in her 40s, she met Dennis Hawley.

“The great thing about meeting a guy in middle age is that he’s not going to have a midlife crisis. You are his midlife crisis,” she quipped.

Three days after Hawley proposed, Wallace was diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer. Hawley, she said, made it clear he would love her with or without a breast, and together they chose lumpectomy followed by radiation. Soon after, they married and adopted a baby son, now a sophomore at UCLA.

“I was so darned happy I could hardly stand it,” said Wallace. “But then, life, being life, said ‘Hah’ and Denny, my beloved Denny, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.”

After a long struggle to beat it, cancer claimed him at age 47, when their son was 5 years old.

In a dark period of mourning and no laughter, Wallace went with friends to Los Angeles to receive an Emmy Award. After an evening of partying and feasting, and vomiting into a bag that was almost then handed to a homeless man when she opened the car door to throw it out, Wallace suddenly began to heal.

“I laughed and I laughed. I laughed until my shoes were wet. Laughter doesn’t trivialize a situation. Laughter is good for everything about us.”

Wallace praised the advancements of medicine and science toward less invasive surgeries in the 21st century, more options, better early detection and breast reconstruction. She urged her audience to listen to their bodies for signs that something is amiss, to not take “no, you’re fine” for an answer and, especially, to not go into denial and not get medical attention.

“But nothing beats early detection” by breast self-examination, she told the women in the audience.

“Cancer is a family journey,” she said. “Bravo to all of you survivors in the audience, and thank you.”

Wallace autographed her book for survivors, some glad in pink, and posed for photographs with them. Earlier in the day, she attended a Cancer Survivors Luncheon.