Extended interview: Martin Short

It's remarkable. Yeah. And did you just say go? Yeah, I mean, I knew that if there was something in there that I wouldn't want, it wouldn't be there.

So you had-- No, I mean, you wouldn't do that with everyone, but you do that with someone who's your close friend that you trust. You trusted him, yeah. In the documentary, you say-- let me phrase it this way. From the outside, your life seems to be an incredible success. Your career, an incredible success. You say in the documentary that much of your career was failure. Well, I mean, I'm talking-- I'm not even talking creative failure. I'm talking about the full home run is it makes a hundred million at the box office, and you get nominated for an Oscar. Now, that's the full home run. But usually, show business is a second-base slide. You get to first base, you're out. You get a third-- I mean, they're very few and far between. So that what's important to me is the journey of doing it. Was it fun? Did I enjoy that four months of my life making that movie? But you can't control what our tastes and what our box office. And then some films like Clifford is a perfect example that no one saw it or liked it at the beginning. And now people love it because tastes change. Maybe you're ahead of the curve at that time. Sometimes you just have to hang on. Yeah, I think it's-- it sounds pretentious to say, but if you're an actor for a long time, it is like being a painter or an artist. You paint something, and someone may like it today and not like it in five years, and vice versa. And your satisfaction has to come from just the journey of doing it. Right. That makes total sense. And like you said, collecting some friends along the way in these special things. Absolutely. Fabulous. And 10,000 funny dinners that come along with those friends. Yeah, which we get a little bit of an insight to, which is remarkable in this. So go all the way back. When you were a kid, you were up in your attic doing talk shows and concerts. Yes. What was the dream? Well, it wasn't a dream so much because I was in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. So it wasn't like I was in New York City and down the street was Hello, Dolly! It was fantasy that I thrived in. So when I was 15, for example, had an imaginary contract with NBC to do an hour show, but every other week, which left me time for my imaginary film career. Of course.

And I had an applause record. I'd sing a medley of songs that weren't nominated. Then I paused the reel to reel, and I go to the applause from Sinatra at the Sands. And I play that. And I typed things up for TV Guide. You even had listings in TV Guide? Oh, yeah, highlights, sure. Marty's guests will be Peggy Lee and Tony Bennett, The Martin Short Show. But at no point did I say, hey, Mom and Dad, I want to be an actor because it was not real. So I wanted to be a doctor not because I cared about science. I was just a fan of Richard Chamberlain's work from Dr. Kildare. I thought, what a series. And you went to school. You went to pre-med. I was in pre-med for two years. And then I thought, no, this is wrong. And then I switched to social work, which gave me more time now to do theater. And that's when I started doing a lot of theater at university. And then you realized at some point, oh, maybe--

And then-- --this doesn't have to be a hobby. --in my fourth year, Eugene Levy, who was now a struggling actor in Toronto, a few years older than I, and my friend said, you should really give this a shot. You should try. And so I remember going to each one of my professors, what do you think? Because I'd never not been in school. And my parents weren't living, so I was alone in the family house. And they all said, of course, you should. And so I gave myself a one-year contract. You gave yourself a deadline. Yeah, one year. So that if between May and the following May if nothing happened and I never worked, then I could now go back and finish my masters in social work. So then you would have just become a social worker. Yeah and probably got into politics. And I love politics. But anyway, while I was still in my fourth year, I got my first job, this job Godspell. And then I kept renewing-- for the next few years, I renew my one-year contract until I thought, I'm stuck. I'm stuck. This is it.

Yeah. So go back. You mentioned that your mother and father died. You also lost your brother all before age 20. Right. What did that teach you about grief and loss. Well, there was no-- again, had I grown up in Beverly Hills, there had been nine live-in shrinks. But it was 1970 in Hamilton, which is fabulous city. But it wasn't the mecca of therapy. And I've never been in therapy, no kidding. But what it developed in me was this muscle of survival and handling grief and a perspective on it. And it stayed with me. And by 20, when my father had died and we now lost three members of the original seven because I was the youngest of five in seven years, I did know that I knew something about life that no other 20-year-old knew. They would find it out in their 40s and 50s, but I knew it at 20 about love and important of keeping these people alive. George Eliot, the writer, once said, "the dead are only dead to us if they are forgotten." Or Mike Nichols once said, um, I think when we lose people, you just keep the conversation going. And all these things I did. So when I met my wife four years after my parents had died, my father died, Nancy felt that she knew them intimately through tapes because I taped everything, but stories, just keep the conversation going. Keep them alive, keep the conversation going. Wow. Do you think that gave you a certain amount of bravery when it came to getting on stage putting yourself out there? I do. I absolutely do. I think if you've gone through that, an audience not liking you is really not that important anymore. You say, well, I like me. And who are you? I mean, this is what I've always realized about-- I'm not on the internet in any level. I don't want to read about myself. But when I do a talk show, I always go to the most recent talk show and see it to see, oh, what jokes did they use because sometimes they'll cut your jokes? Oh, good. I can play that joke because I always send too many pages. And I love to overprepare for everything. But you're seduced sometimes by the comments. And you go down. Oh, he's great. Oh, he's fabulous. I have hated him my whole life. He's boring. He pushes. And I think, well, that person, whoever, Horner176 has a right to their opinion. But this is what I know. If I had dinner with Horner176, I'd be bored. I would be bored. I bet they're bored. That's a great way to look at it. I think it's an accurate way to look at it and an arrogant. It's my combo. But that's OK. It's a great way to cope with it instead of focusing on this one person that pick, pick, pick-- I think it's very important to be our best friends and to go toward the highest form of wisdom when it comes to all this stuff. Like, when you do something, if you're in a movie or a television show or a Broadway show and you know it's not very good, and they say it's not very good, you go, aw, they caught me. But if you know it's great and someone says, I don't like it, you think, you're an idiot. So you know in your heart what the review should be.

Do you read reviews? No, but sometimes. Like, I'll read them-- if I open in a Broadway show, I would read the New York Times, just because if you don't, people will come up to you and say, are you OK? What does he know? And you think, OK. All right. Let me read it. My first movie I ever made was Three Amigos. And I remember having a meeting with John Landis, the director. And during our meeting, his film that had just opened was Spies Like Uswith Chevy and Danny Aykroyd. And in those days, you'd just be handed a stack of reviews, like 180 of them. And as we were having our meeting, he was handed the stack. And he started-- and he went like this. Oh, that's OK. OK. Oh, that's pretty good. Oh, listen to this. The worst-- so he was gravitating toward the negative. And I thought, this isn't healthy. So when I got my first movie, Three Amigos, and I got that packet, I took the advice of my friend, Christopher Guest. And I just went to the garbage can and threw them away. Threw all the reviews away. Yeah. One time, Steve Martin said, on a film, only send me the good reviews. In those days, they were fax machine. So he sat by the fax machine as nothing happened. And finally, [IMITATING FAX MACHINE] one positive from The Sacramento Bee. You know what I mean? That was it. So that didn't work either. It's best to get them and throw them. So how do you handle that, though, when Three Amigos,which is a classic now, when it came out, was not so beloved. Mixed. Mixed. Certain people loved it. And I remember I made this film, Three Fugitives, and the director, (IN FRENCH ACCENT) a French man, Francis Veber. (IN REGULAR VOICE) And I said, you know certain aspects of the script-- (IN FRENCH ACCENT) he said, let me tell you about this film, Marty. People who will love it will love it, and people who will hate it will hate it. (IN REGULAR VOICE) And you can't permeate either group. So I said, OK.

And you carried that with you for some of these films. Yeah. Well, again, Three Amigos is a perfect example. It did OK at the box office, mixed reviews. And now people can't comprehend that it wasn't just adored back then because it became something that was adored. So let's back up to Godspell for a second, magical time. And this is where you met Nancy, on Godspell. Did you immediately fall for her, No. I immediately fell for Gilda Radner. So Gilda-- Nancy wasn't hired right away. We start-- you know, I have a Rain Man memory about things. I used to think I had HSAM-- do you know what that is-- where there's 400 people in the world that-- 60 Minuteshas done a piece. It's 400, 500 people that know everything-- what they wore and had for dinner 25 years ago, who was there. They have full memory that never alters. And I used to think I had it. And I was telling someone-- I said, I think I might have HSAM, just like Marilu-- Henner. I couldn't remember Henner. So I thought, OK, if I don't remember Henner, I don't have it. Marilu-- you know, the chick from Taxi,one of those things. Anyway, but I do have a lot of-- so on March 25, 1972, the Godspellauditions happened. And we got in, this group of 10. And then the show opened June 1. But Nancy, she was an understudy. She didn't join 'til the following October. So by that time, I was the boyfriend of Gilda Radner for the next couple of years. And then how did you end up falling for Nancy? Gilda and I broke up. We'd have fights and break up and get back together, in fact. And so I went to the Pilot Bar, and there was Nancy. She had just broken up with her boyfriend. And we'd always liked each other. She was so beautiful, she scared everybody. Because she had long, Joni Mitchell hair, and she owned this antique clothing store, Shades of Azure. And she'd come in with a black velvet cape and-- is everyone healthy? And she'd sign, and we'd go, hi. But I was with Gilda. And then Gilda and I broke up. And then I ran into Nancy at the Pilot Bar, and we arranged a tennis match the next day. And that was that. I remember Gilda saying, you're with Nancy Dolman? We're supposed to get back together, aren't we? Yeah. What did you say? Ship sailed. She was fine. Believe me. Everyone was in love with Gilda. Yes, true. And Gilda and Nancy came to an understanding eventually. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. So as-- well, let's talk about career. Then we'll go back to Nancy. So then you move on to Second City, SCTV, SNL, and you start developing these amazing characters-- Ed Grimley, Jackie Rogers, Nathan Thurm. Do you have a favorite character that you absolutely love-- No, they're all like your kids. They really do become your own creations. Each one is kind interesting and different in the sense that Ed Grimley represented innocence, pure innocence and joy of life. I remember one line I wrote, where the phone is ringing on SNL, and he's going to answer it. And then he turns and says, gee, I love the phone. There's always such a sense of mystery. So everything delighted him. Nathan Thurm was the guy that represented all the bad guys on 60 Minuteswho would lie and cheat and then, when cornered, attack you. Sound like anyone? And Jiminy Glick was just a moron with power, someone who became an inevitability for no reason. He'd say things to an interviewer-- just because I ask you a question doesn't mean I need an answer. I remember that shh. Yes. Shh!

I remember that. Edie Falco got freaked out by it. Yeah. That's one of the things that this documentary did, was make me want to go back and watch, for example, all of the Jiminy Glicks. And as I watched those, I think, what was Jiminy Glick's goal in doing an interview? There was no goal. I was doing a talk show for King World, and we wanted to create someone who would go out in the fields and just get more names. You go to a junket, and you can also say, Tom Hanks is on and Jack Nicholson-- you're not lying. He's going to be on, but it's a Jiminy section. And I remember we were shooting at CBS in Television City, and we go to farmer's market. And I put on a fake nose and a baldpate. And I go behind a fish store. And I'd be handing fish with my hands to see people's reaction. And they'd say, can we have your autograph, Mr. Short? And I thought, ooh, that's a drag. I've done too much of this. They're seeing through the fake nose. But I'd made a movie in 1990 called Pure Luck. And at one point, I'm stung by a bee, and I swell up. And I remember, on the set, Nancy came and said, I cannot see you in there. And I thought, ooh. So that became kind of Jiminy's look. I mean the-- And when he conducts an interview, what's the point? So when he does an interview, there's nothing prepared. I don't have notes. Because for a final six minutes, maybe we'd film for 12 minutes. And I would just improvise, where other characters, like Ed Grimley and Nathan Thurm and Irving, very written, memorized, exact. But Jiminy, I would just-- and then I'd be in the edit bay, and I'd see myself say, I take great umbrage. And I think, I've never used that expression in my-- I don't even know what it means, you know. But that character gave me a freedom to say anything while under the guise of not meaning to say anything negative. Like, you'd say to Spielberg, when are you going to do the big one, the one that connects with the people? And the truth is, it's an insult to, but it's also a really good-hearted insult. It's not--

Yeah, absolutely. --which is what makes it really brilliant. Well, it's like any-- Steve Martin and I insult each other all the time on stage. And people always ask, do we ever go too far or we have ever-- and no, because you don't go to the real things. You go to the silly things. I'll say to Steve, how does it feel to have looked 70 since you were 30? It's kind of true, but it's a joke. It's a sweet joke, kind of. It's a sweet insult. So as you're-- Although, I did say to him that he's so pale, in the '80s, I think I once tried to snort you, you see. So that's-- I say he looks like Anderson Cooper froze to death on New Year's Eve. So it's-- yes, he's pale, but he's not that pale.

It's all good natured. Yeah, all good natured. So as your career progressed, you and Nancy also started a family. How eager were you to become a dad? Very, absolutely. Andrea Martin describes your fatherhood as genuine as breath for you, as genuine as breathing. I think that's true. I think it's true for a lot of parents. I don't think I'm unique on that one, hopefully.

There are these precious movies of you with your kids. What did you love about being a dad? Well, what's great about having dinner? I mean, it just seemed to make-- why are we here, if not to be parents and raise children and learn from their innocence and be delighted by their constant innocence? And you learn that that's the most important thing you could ever do. It seems like you always had a real sense of balancing. I think it's interesting about life. I always think it's like the scales of justice at the end. It all equals out. I mean, someone might look at my life and say, oh my god, how lucky. He can afford a lovely home. He's had this career. People like him. Oh, that thing. But then there's other things that can take that down. And at the end, it's probably a wash, whoever you are. That's an interesting way to look at it. When Nancy got sick, she wanted you to keep working. Did you want to keep working? I didn't work as much. But she had ovarian cancer. So after the initial chemo and everything, she had two years of great health. So you then believe we're out of the woods. And then if it returns, you adjust. But I remember, I was doing Damagesat the time. And we weren't telling anyone, but the executive producers knew where we were. So they weren't taking me out, but they were saving all my scenes 'til to the end. And I remember I now had to go. And Nancy was really-- this was the last five months. But I went for a month to shoot. And I remember getting the set, and no one knew. And Glenn would go, Marty's here! Yay! And I go, OK, let me just go to the dressing room for a second. OK then. That's what you have to do. Wow. Did it help, to get out there and do that? I don't know if it helped. No, it didn't help. But you had to do it. People have to do things in difficult times. And the mark of the man is, can you do it? What do you tell yourself to get through that? Well, it's something that I've just been in that situation many times. You head toward the light. Speaking of light, watching the home videos of Nancy in particular, we get such a sense of the light that she was in every room-- Oh, I said to Larry Kasdan, when I saw the first rough cut-- I said, you never told me you were in love with Nancy. Because honest to God, she comes across like a star that she is. Can you describe her to you? She was funny. She had lots of edge. I'm always amazed when couples will say, we've never had a fight. Really? We did. But you never went to bed with the fight. But no, she had lots of edge and lots-- and funny and sarcastic. And it was an equal ping-pong match. Trust me. There was no gee, Marty. Although, Tom Hanks would say-- at dinners, he'd go up to Nancy. Aren't you tired of laughing at his jokes? [LAUGHTER] She'd say, I know. It's silly. You have all of these wonderful movies of all of your friends hanging out-- Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg, Eugene Levy. It goes on and on and on. John Mulaney. Yes, John Mulaney. I mean, it's incredible. And I'm wondering, during those tough times, like when you lost Nancy, how important was that core group? Oh, very important, very important. It's interesting in my life because family was so important, and yet, circumstances keep saying, oh, it's so important, is it? What if we take three of them away? What do you think? Well, then continue on and find other elements that can continue the word "family" again. I've always been amazed-- I mean, I'm the youngest of five, but I'm amazed, people who are an only child, you realize that their close friends become their siblings. And did that happen to you? Did a lot of your close friends become your family? Well, I was, again, the youngest of five. And we lost the eldest, David. But the other four are still flourishing. They're all in their 80s. They're in the documentary. And they're all hilarious. And we're all insanely close. And so I wasn't-- my friends became my friends. I tend to have longtime friends. But I certainly had and continue to have strong siblings. Yeah. And it's wonderful to see them in the documentary as well. And you make a joke about how-- oh, yeah, when we were kids, we had the funeral home on speed dial. Yes. That's true. Well, you know, it's the Irish. You have to find humor in the dark. Did anybody say, hey, don't hand over these home movies, any of your buddies? No. First of all, I didn't ask them. I'll do whatever I want, thank you very much, buddies. No, no, no. I think, truthfully, if it had been Joe Blow directing it, I might have gotten a reaction of, really, you're giving them-- but With Larry Kasdan, who wrote Star Wars 2, Three Raiders of the Lost Ark, Body Heat, Big Chill, Accidental Tourist, Grand Canyon,you feel a little safer. That makes sense. There's also this priceless footage of your Christmas parties. What was the atmosphere that you were trying to set with the Christmas parties? There was no atmosphere. We used to do these parties in Toronto. Eugene Levy and I shared a house on Avenue Road in Toronto. And it was just-- Paul Shaffer would go over to play the piano, and Gilda would sing, and I'd perform. And everyone just got up. We were all performers, and we loved to perform. So I was continuing that tradition here, but it was a little more atypical here because people would get more nervous. But this living room would be filled with 60 of the most fascinating people I guess you could assemble. And Marc Shaiman would always play the piano, and I'd emcee. And then it started off with me, spontaneous-- who would like to do something? Through the years, because we did about 12 years in a row, now it became-- if the party started at 7:00, there'd be a rehearsal in there at six. So you'd have Nathan Lane and Bernadette Peters rehearsing their numbers. Oh, it's amazing. And Victor Garber once took a month of singing lessons in prep. Oh, yeah. It's serious. But there weren't supposed to be any cameras there. There were no cameras there. I was always surprised in the documentary there was video. I didn't even know people took video.

Somebody snuck a video. Yeah, Glenn Frey. No, but everyone-- it was an amazing group of people that would perform-- Steve and Chevy and everyone.

Outstanding. Catherine O'Hara did it every year. Oh, seeing Catherine O'Hara in this documentary is such a treasure. I know. What was it like for you to watch that, to hear her talking about you, see that footage? Well, Catherine was like a sister to me. There was no one more brilliant. There was no one sweeter. And there was no one funnier. And she, more than anyone at SCTV, would sit behind the camera and give you suggestions. Marty, try that. And you say, oh, OK. And then you always just did it. Very generous-- I remember we did a piece, The Queen Haters. We were a punk rock group. And she had just seen a punk band where the guy just randomly did this dance, where he put it-- so she showed it to me, and then I went and did the take. And that's what's in there. That's what Catherine did. The rest of us were just self-centered but not Catherine. When did you get a chance to see the cut of the documentary? Oh, an early cut, maybe-- I don't know five months ago, maybe.

What was it like for you to watch it? My first comment was I phoned Larry and said, well, this is no surprise, but I'm just reminded you're a brilliant filmmaker. And then-- I always have notes and thoughts that after-- ignored. But they certainly heard them. But no, I thought he did a brilliant job off the top. Is it odd to hear all your friends talking about you like that? Well, you worry that it's going to come across icky, but now I don't think so. Because they're such sincere people in their lives that it's impossible to believe they're not sincere. I love-- there's a quote from Tom Hanks where he says, "Marty operates at the speed of joy." Is that true? You know, I don't analyze myself. If that's his review for me, I'll accept it. But I think I do have the happy gene, and I think my orientation is to be happy. How is that? Where do you think that comes from? Do you think it's truly genetic? I do. I do. I think it is. I think it's-- obviously, everything is elements. Show business is talent, luck, and endurance. I think that is DNA. But how were you raised? Were your parents kind? Were people kind to you? Was kindness the operative word? I look at all my siblings' children and their children now. And everyone's different. And everyone has a different maybe profession or approach to life. But the one constant in all these extended shorts is everyone is sweet and kind. There's not one prick in the group. Because I don't think they would survive. I think they'd be ripped to shreds. That makes sense, right, in your family, right? You have to be kind. If you're not kind, it would be bad. When you lost Nancy, how do you get through that? How do you choose joy then? Well, you don't right away. But you have children to raise, which I did. This is 15 years ago. I had children to raise. And I did have an understanding from my childhood of what-- the end of life was going to happen to all of us. And some, it's too early. But we have to celebrate and be lucky enough, the experiences that we have with them. But just to think of them-- they've just gone into the next room for a while. Gone into the next room for a while. And eventually-- You'll be in that room That's beautiful. When my brother David died-- I talk about in the documentary, but I was 12. I was traumatized. And I did have, the second night, a full Technicolor dream. Because he'd been in a car accident. So it couldn't be an open funeral. And that was traumatizing, awful to everyone. And suddenly, I'm in-- it's, like, Freudian. But I'm in a beautiful bucolic-- there's a stream, and there's a little home. And I'm sitting by the stream, and David sits beside me. And he looks handsome. And he said, I'll see you in a minute. And I woke up, went, oh. It was lifted. Now, a theologian would say, well, that was a visitation. And a scientist would say, that's a 12-year-old who needs mental relief. Who knows? But it gave you the relief. It gave me the relief. Yeah. So maybe it doesn't need an entire explanation. Absolutely correct. The documentary is devoted to two people, to Catherine O'Hara and then your daughter, Katherine. Is there anything you want to share about Katherine? I'm so sorry. It's been a nightmare for the family. But the understanding that mental health and cancer, like my wife, 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, Mart, let me go. And she was just saying, Dad, let me go. So I hold a deep desire-- and that's why I'm involved with this organization, Bring Change to Mind, which Glenn Close started, which is taking mental health out of the shadows, not being ashamed of it, not hiding from the word suicide, but accepting that this can be the last stage of an illness. And that's my approach to this. Yeah. And the thing is, nobody would blame if you said, I'm not going to talk about this. This is my private life. And-- If I wasn't going to talk about this, then I would have pushed the documentary. Because it is-- listen, it's called Martin, Life is Short. And suddenly, last October, I lost Diane Keaton on the same day I lost my sister-in-law, Nancy's sister, to cancer. And then Rob and Michele have been my lifelong friends for 40 years-- Reiner-- and then Catherine O'Hara and then my daughter. I mean, it's been in four months-- staggering, staggering. How do you even wrap your mind around that? You can't. You just have to breathe in, breathe out. What I do is I dictate into my phone, and I transcribe it. And I look at it and rewrite it and put it away. That's the way I do it, the same way I've always done it, because I've never been in therapy. So your therapy is this-- My therapy is me. --is you dictating into your phone your feelings, write it out, and then-- And then live with it. And then you find, if you're repeating your same things, maybe you're getting-- maybe you're moving on a little bit. But ultimately, I think it's important to do the documentary at this time because, as we talked about, there's something about the message here-- if there's a message-- is that you can choose joy, that you can find the light, even in the darkest moments. Do you think? Yes. Well, look, I mean, I think we all are in denial about our limited time on this Earth. It's very difficult to accept it. So the idea of-- my brother, David, said, I'll see you in a minute, or someone going to the next room for a bit until you join them-- it's very difficult for us to accept. But the more you accept it, I think it does lift you and make you feel that-- this is a complicated little journey, life. And the more we approach it with wisdom, probably the happier we'll be. [AUDIO LOGO]