Inside Martin Short’s private family tragedies – and the joy he chose anyway

• The witty Martin Short is the subject of a new Netflix documentary, "Marty, Life is Short," now streaming.
• "Marty, Life is Short," is directed by Martin Short's longtime friend, filmmaker Lawrence Kasdan, who says the comedian was initially "a little hesitant" about the project.
• "Marty, Life is Short" traces the Emmy-winner's career trajectory, gives an intimate look at his loving marriage to wife Nancy Dolman, and the star's resiliency.

Onscreen, Martin Short's zany characters – enthusiastic Ed Grimley, tactless Jiminy Glick and exuberant Franck Eggelhoffer in “Father of the Bride," among them – have made audiences cackle for decades.

But off-camera, life hasn’t always been a stream of laughs. As Netflix’s documentary “Marty, Life is Short” (now streaming) shows, the funnyman has suffered harrowing tragedies.

“He has a history of terrible loss, and he has an attitude that is very positive,” says director Lawrence Kasdan, an Oscar-nominated filmmaker and Short’s longtime friend. The two met during casting for the 1987 rom-com “Cross My Heart,” and “I knew that he had this history, and yet I was fascinated, from the time that we got to know each other, by how upbeat and positive he was, despite real challenges,” he says.

At just 20, Short had already suffered the loss of his older brother and his parents. In 2010, his wife of 30 years, Nancy Dolman, died of ovarian cancer at age 58. In February, Short mourned the death of their daughter, Katherine Short, who died by suicide at age 42.

“The thing I admire most about him, I think, is his resilience,” Kasdan, 77, says. “That's really the subtext of the whole movie … how do we recover when things go bad? It's not that complicated when things are going great, but nobody has a life where everything goes great.”

Kasdan gives viewers an intimate look at the witty Short, 76, through home footage shot by the star and interviews with early collaborators Eugene Levy, Andrea Martin and Catherine O'Hara, who died in January of a pulmonary embolism, following a rectal cancer diagnosis. Tom Hanks, Steve Martin, John Mulaney and Steven Spielberg also praise Short’s talents and character. Short’s son, Oliver, also participated, but a sit-down with his brother, Henry, proved “logistically impossible,” Kasdan says.

Here’s what you should know about “Marty, Life is Short.”

A ‘private’ Martin Short lets viewers in

Kasdan says the idea for a documentary came to him while working on a 2022 docuseries about visual effects, “Light & Magic.” When talking to his team about the project’s tone “I said, ‘I want it to feel like what it's like to hang out with Marty Short,’” Kasdan says. “They really responded to that because, even though they were younger people, they just love Marty, and they wanted to know all what that meant.”

When Kasdan pitched the film to Short, “he was a little hesitant at first because he just didn't want it to be another one of these documentaries,” the director says. “He's also a private person. But he came around. We talked for quite a while about it, and I think if we hadn't been friends, he wouldn't have done it. But he agreed.”

Short has seen the film “several times,” Kasdan says. “He really likes it.”

‘Marty, Life is Short’ is dedicated to Catherine O’Hara and Katherine Short

Kasdan and his team of filmmakers decided to dedicate the documentary to the memories of O’Hara and Katherine Short. A picture of the two is included at the end of the movie. Kasdan says he was close to both. He directed O'Hara in “Wyatt Earp,” and collaborated with her husband, production designer Bo Welch, on “The Accidental Tourist” and “Grand Canyon.”

“And Katherine Short, I've known since she was a little girl,” Kasdan says, “I just feel total affection, and sadness at her loss.”

Katherine Short’s death is not recounted in the documentary, due to timing and a desire to let Short grieve privately.

“We were well into finishing of the film, and even if we hadn't been, it's not something I want to put him through questions about,” Kasdan says. “He has his own way of dealing with it. He will tell people what he wants to tell them.”

Short spoke of his daughter’s struggles in an interview with CBS Sunday Morning May 10.

"It's been a nightmare for the family," he told journalist Tracy Smith. "But the understanding that mental health and cancer − like my wife (had) − are both diseases, and sometimes, with diseases, they are terminal. And 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. So Nan’s last words to me were, ‘Martin, let me go.’ And (Katherine) was just saying, ‘Dad, let me go.’"

Martin Short fell in love with the ‘drop-dead beautiful’ Nancy Dolman

“Nancy was drop-dead beautiful,” Short says in the documentary, but he didn’t pay too much attention to the men gawking at her because he was in an on-again, off-again relationship with Gilda Radner. One summer, when he and Dolman were both single, she came to see him in a play. They stopped in at a Four Seasons hotel, where Short delivered a wisecrack to a member of the staff: “‘My wife and I would like a room please.’ And even he started laughing because we looked about 12,” Short says. “That was it.”

They wed in 1980 but had trouble conceiving because of Dolman’s endometriosis.

“We were stunned,” Short says when they couldn’t get pregnant, and they turned to fertility drugs that affected Dolman’s mood. She once got mad at Short for not cleaning the counter after making a sandwich.

“I said, ‘OK, you have to stop those drugs. And we’re going to adopt a baby,’” Short says. “And we adopted Katherine, and then Oliver, and then Henry.”

O'Hara praises Short and Dolman as “an amazing team.”

“My husband and I went through a little rough patch in our marriage,” O'Hara says. So they went to couples counseling where the therapist asked if they knew any couples they aspired to be like. “We said, ‘Oh, we have these friends, Marty and Nancy.’ And she said, ‘I can’t tell you how many people have named them, when I’ve asked this question.’”

How Bill Murray's success impacted Martin Short's move to comedy

Short decided against auditioning for The Second City Toronto when it opened in 1973, because he “didn’t like the idea of being funny on demand,” he says, “because I was basically afraid of it. I wanted to be Sinatra. I wanted to be a singer. I wanted to be an actor.”

But before long, Short felt stuck professionally. So he moved to Los Angeles with then-girlfriend Dolman, when she landed a recording contract. One evening, in 1977, Short and Dolman were walking to get dinner with friends Paul Shaffer and Bill Murray, who’d made his “Saturday Night Live” debut that January. Short became “overwhelmed with, ‘I can’t. I can’t do it,’” he says. Out of work and without prospects, Short told Dolman, “I can’t go and pretend to be happy for Bill because I don’t know what I’m doing. I need to sit down.”

The next morning Short, “woke up in a funk.” But seeing the improvisational group War Babies provided the clarity Short desperately needed.

“It was like the light bulbs went off. ‘Of course this is what I should be doing,’” Short says, and he joined Second City Toronto.

Martin Short has learned ‘loss is something to negotiate’

Short’s older brother, David Short, died following a car accident in 1962, when the comedian was 12. After, “it was like nothing made sense,” Short says. “And then I had a dream. And I’m telling you, I can see it right now, and it was in Technicolor. And I was sitting by a stream in the woods, and David came up. He looked handsome. He was wearing this beautiful Ban-Lon shirt. And he said: ‘I’m fine. Everything is wonderful, and I’ll see you in a minute.’ And I woke up, and the cloud had lifted.”

But tragedy struck the family again when Short’s mom, Olive, started to cough at David’s funeral. She’d previously battled breast cancer quietly, Short says. But this time, it was predicted that she had just three months left to live. Olive refused to accept her prognosis, as she had “another child to raise,” Short says. So she asked her daughter, Nora Short, to pass her some grapes. “And that became a symbol of courage in our family,” Short says.

Olive “was in perfect health for the next two years,” Short says, but died when he was 18. His father’s health declined quickly after, and Charles Short died when his son was just 20. Short’s beloved wife, Dolman was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2007. She tended to be an optimist and put up a fight, Short says, but died in 2010.

“Like any family, it’s just a simple fact that loss is something to negotiate,” Short says. “It’s going to happen to all of us, and we must celebrate and continue that voice and never let it go.”