The long and short of it.
The new Netflix documentary “Marty, Life is Short” covers the life and career of comedian and actor Martin Short, 76, including interviews with Short and his famous pals including Tom Hanks, Steve Martin and the late Catherine O’Hara.
The doc dives into his successful career and major personal tragedies including his wife Nancy Dolman’s death from cancer in 2010.
Though the doc steers clear of things like his rumored romance with Meryl Streep, it’s filled with all the highs and lows Short experienced in his life.
Here are the biggest revelations from “Marty, Life is Short,” which is now streaming.
Short said that comedy doesn’t come from a place of “pain“
Short’s life has been filled with loss – as the doc explains, the actor lost his older brother David when he was 12, his mother when he was 18, and his father when he was 20.
He also lost his wife Nancy in 2010 from cancer, and his daughter, Katherine to suicide earlier this year.
Despite all his hardships, Short says, “It’s false” to say that his comedy instincts came from a place of “pain…It’s the opposite.”
Growing up as the youngest of five siblings in a close Canadian family, he spent his childhood surrounded by “so much attention and so much love,” he says, to the point where he entered his teenage years “without any kind of concern” about the usual teen hang-ups, such as romantic rejection.
Other couples wanted to be like Short and his wife Nancy
Short’s longtime friend O’Hara, who appears in the doc posthumously after her shocking death in January, praised his relationship with his wife Nancy.
The “Schitt’s Creek” star reveals that she was going through a “rough patch” in her marriage with her husband, Bo Welch, who she was married to from 1992 until her death.
“We went to therapy,” she explains, adding when the therapist asked if she and Welch could name a couple whose relationship they would love to “emulate,” they immediately named Short and Nancy.
According to the “Home Alone” actress, the therapist replied, ‘I can’t tell you how many people have named them, when I’ve asked this question.”
Short was married to Dolan from 1980 until her death from ovarian cancer at 58 in 2010.
His “breakdown” moment
In the doc, Short recalls having a “breakdown” in 1977 over his stagnant career right at the same time as his pal Bill Murray was taking off.
He and Nancy were walking to a dinner for Murray, who had just landed “SNL,” when Short became “overwhelmed with ‘I can’t do it.’”
“I hadn’t worked for a couple months, I had no prospects, and didn’t know where I was going,” Short recalls, adding he wasn’t able to “pretend to be happy” for Murray.
Shortly after that, Short was inspired by a comedy group called War Babies, leading him to improv comedy.
Short and his wife struggled with fertility issues
Short and Nancy were “stunned” when they were unable to have a baby.
Short says Nancy was endometriosis and had to take “drugs” that made her moods “heightened.”
The actor told his wife, “You have to stop those drugs, and we’re going to adopt a baby.”
They eventually adopted Katherine, 42, Oliver, 40, and Henry, 36.
He despised working on “Saturday Night Live”
Short’s stint on the popular sketch comedy show was… well, short.
“I hated it,” Short, who was on the show for just one season in 1984, admits.
He says working on the show was “grueling,” and didn’t like working alone in an office.
His attitude about death and loss
Short details the loss of multiple family members at a young age, including his brother and both parents.
Short, who was 12 when his brother died in a car accident, recalls that he was at camp, and a counselor told him, ‘Your brother’s been in an accident and it killed him.’ That’s how he put it. And I said, ‘Is he OK?’”
After his passing, Short says he had a dream where David, told him “I’m fine, everything is wonderful, and I’ll see you in a minute.” When he woke up, he felt like “a cloud had lifted.”
“It’s a simple fact that loss is something to negotiate. It’s going to happen to all of us,” he explains.
Short’s mother died of cancer in 1968 when he was 17 and his father died two years later, around 1970, from complications of a stroke.
The doc doesn’t cover his daughter Katherine’s death by suicide at age 42 in February, which Short recently called a “nightmare.”
“My daughter fought for a long time with extreme mental health, borderline personality disorder, other things, and did the best she [could] until she couldn’t,” the “Father of the Bride” actor told “CBS Sunday Morning.”
His support of his wife as she was dying was “extraordinary”
Short’s wife, Nancy, was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2007, and according to pal Eugene Levy, “At a certain point we kind of knew that it wasn’t going to work out.”
Tom Hanks recalls Short’s family’s attitude during the devastating battle was, “You’re not going to stop doing work because this malady is going to do its damage.”
Actress Andrea Martin says that Nancy “wanted to keep going until she couldn’t,” and Short was “a perfect partner because he let her. It was extraordinary to watch.”
After her death, Short coped by continuing to work.
His son Oliver says in the doc, “I don’t know what he would do if he wasn’t on the move.”
“Marty, Life is Short” is now streaming on Netflix.
