Martin Short gives a lesson on finding joy through pain in his new documentary Marty, Life Is Short.
The film, directed by Short’s longtime friend Lawrence Kasdan, details the life and career of the beloved comedian through archived footage, never-before-seen home videos and exclusive interviews with Short’s dearest friends including Steve Martin, Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg and the late Catherine O’Hara.
While the documentary highlights many of Short’s biggest wins — from his jumpstart at SCTV, to Father of the Bride’s success, to falling in love with wife Nancy Dolman to welcoming their three children, Oliver, Henry and Katherine — it also tackles his most tragic of lows. The Only Murders in the Building star lost his older brother, David, and both parents, Olive and Charles, in an eight-year span before turning 21.
Then, in 2010, his wife, Nancy, died following a three-year battle with ovarian cancer.
“What it developed in me was this muscle of survival and handling grief, and a perspective on it,” Short told CBS Mornings earlier this month, pointing out that enduring much loss has actually helped him as a performer. “I think if you’ve gone through that, an audience not liking you is really not that important anymore.”
In February, Short faced his most recent tragedy when his daughter, Katherine, died by suicide at the age of 42. Kasdan suggested they postpone the release of the documentary, but Martin wanted to move forward.
“My instinct was the opposite,” Short explained. “Because it’s about love, loss and survival … I think we proceed. We must figure a way to survive through grief without denying it or without in any way undermining its importance.”
Keep scrolling for the documentary’s biggest revelations:
Martin Short on Falling in Love With Girlfriend Gilda Radnor’s Understudy
Short opened up about dating Radner during their time in Godspell, where he said “everyone” fell in love with her “self-deprecating” sense of humor.
The cast was also interested in Radeor’s understudy: Martin’s future wife, Dolman.
“Nancy was drop-dead beautiful. It was insane,” Short recalled. “And she worked in an antique clothing store where she had smuggled clothes in from Detroit through the [Canadian] border. She had a Joni Mitchell look, long blonde hair. … but it didn’t bother me because I was with Gilda.”
After an on-and-off romance with Radner, Short’s focus shifted. “We’d broken up a few time and we’d now had a fight and we’d broken up again and I got to The Pilot bar and there’s Nancy,” he said. “She was funny … she had just broken up with her boyfriend.”
Short said that Dolman showed up to support him in a play he was doing, which led to them spending more time together off stage. “Nancy came and she was wearing short shorts and a halter top and I was wearing short shorts and a t-shirt. And we went to the Four Seasons hotel and I said to the guy, ‘My wife and I would like a room, please, and even he started laughing because we looked about 12,” Short said, adding, “And that was it.”
Catherine O’Hara Looked to Martin Short’s Marriage During Own Romance Woes
O’Hara confessed that during a troubling time in her own marriage to Bo Welch, the pair looked to Short and Dolman for inspiration.
“My husband and I went through a little rough patch in our marriage and we went to therapy, and one of the questions [the therapist] asked is, ‘Do you have friends, a couple, whose relationship you’d love to emulate? And she said, ‘We have these friends Marty and Nancy.’”
(O’Hara died in January at the age of 71. The documentary is dedicated to her and Short’s daughter, Katherine.)
Nancy Short’s Fertility Struggles
Short said he and Dolman were taken by surprise when they had trouble conceiving a child.
“Suddenly, we couldn’t get pregnant. We hadn’t even considered that,” he explained in the doc, noting they eventually discovered that Nancy suffered from endometriosis, which can cause fertility issues.
During a fight over a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, the couple decided they wanted to adopt their children. They went on to welcome sons Henry and Oliver and daughter Katherine, who died in February at the age of 42.
Martin Short Reflects on the Death of His Brother David Short
Short looked back at his relationship with older brother David, who died at age 20 when the Father of the Bride star was just 12 years old. Calling him “funny and so sweet,” he detailed how he discovered that his brother had died while away at camp.
“They said, ‘Your brothers been in an accident and it killed him,” he recalled. “And I said, ‘Is he OK?’ … ‘No, it killed him.’”
Short said “nothing made sense” to him after David’s death until his late brother appeared to him in a dream.
“It was in technicolor. I was sitting by a stream in the woods and David came up, and he looked beautiful, and he said, ‘i’m fine everything is wonderful and I’ll see you in a minute,” he recalled. “And I woke up and a cloud had lifted.”
Martin Short Details the Death of Mother Olive and Father Charles Short
Short said that his mother, Olive, developed a “cough” while at the funeral for his brother David after battling breast cancer years earlier — an illness he was not aware she had.
“And by the end of that year, she really started going downhill,” Short shared, recalling how his sister, Nora, “was present when the doctor said you have three months to live.”
Olive, however, had other plans. “She said, ‘This can’t happen. I have another child to raise.’ And then she came home and went into this remarkable, can’t explain it, remission. And she was in perfect health for another two years. But by the time I was in grade 13, she died.” Short said that after his mother’s death, his father Charles’ health faded “fast.”
“It was just strokes that diminished him. Most powerful guy in the room to being quieter, quieter,” he explained, adding that even a trip around the world couldn’t bring his dad back to his old self. “Even when we were in Ireland, he didn’t want to see exhibits because he was not in great shape,” Short remembered, noting that his dad previously smoked “two packs” of cigarettes a day.
Olive died in 1968, while Charles died two years later in 1970.
Nancy Short’s Cancer Journey
Short shared that Dolman initially believed she had a hernia in 2007 before a doctor’s scan revealed it was an ovarian cyst. Days later, it was confirmed that the cyst was cancerous.
“At one point, I did have to go and shoot [my movie] Damages,” Short recalled of that time. “No one knew what was going on and I’d be like, ‘Just give me a second in the dressing room …’”
Short noted that his wife was a “positive” person in general, so her approach was, “I can fight it.”
“She was on a new cocktail of chemo, went to the internet and said, ‘I’m not going to do that anymore,’” he recalled, adding that from that point on she just focused on living her life as fully as possible.
“She wanted to keep going until she couldn’t, and he was the perfect partner because he let her,” friend Eugene Levy explained. “He first threw himself into his children’s lives and then he threw himself into his work.”
Dolman died in 2010, three years into her fight. She was 58 years old.
“Like any family, it’s a simple fact that loss is something to negotiate,” Short explained of pushing forward after his wife’s passing. “It’s going to happen to all of us.”
Marty, Life Is Short is streaming on Netflix now.
