Martin Hayter Short, CM (born
March 26,
1950) is a
Canadian/
American comedian,
actor,
writer, and
producer. He is best known for his
comedy work, particularly on the TV programs
SCTV and
Saturday Night Live. He has been nominated for an
Emmy Award.
Early life
The youngest of five children, Short was born in
Hamilton, Ontario,
Canada to Charles and Olive Short. His father, an executive with
Stelco,
[1] a Canadian steel company, came to
North America in 1921 as a stowaway Roman Catholic refugee from
Belfast, Northern Ireland during the
Irish War of Independence.[
citation needed] His mother, who was the
concertmaster of the Hamilton Symphony Orchestra, encouraged his early creative endeavours.
[2]Short attended
Westdale Secondary School[3] and graduated in 1972 from
McMaster University with a
Bachelor of Arts degree in
social work.
Short lost several members of his family at an early age. His eldest brother, David, was killed in a car accident in 1962, when Short was 12. His mother died of
cancer when he was 17; two years later, his father died of complications from a
stroke in 1970.
[4] Early career
When Short graduated from McMaster University, he intended to pursue a career in social work, but he became interested in acting once he was cast in a
Toronto production of
Godspell in
1972 (among the other members of that production's cast:
Victor Garber,
Gilda Radner,
Eugene Levy,
Dave Thomas and
Andrea Martin, with
Paul Shaffer as
musical director.) He was subsequently cast in several television shows and plays, including an intense topical drama, "Fortune and Men's Eyes". (He worked solely in Canada from 1972 through 1979.)
In 1979, Short starred in the ill-fated TV
sitcom "The Associates" about a group of young novice lawyers working at a
Wall Street law firm. The show was cancelled after only 9 of the 13 episodes where aired, but received 2 Golden Globe nominations after its cancellation.
Short then joined the cast of "I'm A Big Girl Now", a
sitcom vehicle for
Diana Canova that also starred
Danny Thomas, in
1980. Canova was offered the sitcom due to her success playing Corinne Tate Flotsky on
ABC's "
Soap", and she left the cast of the latter show in the fall of 1980 in order to accept the offer shortly before Short's newlywed wife
Nancy Dolman joined it.
SCTV
Short was encouraged to pursue comedy by McMaster classmates
Eugene Levy and
Dave Thomas, both notable comedians in their own right. He joined Levy and Thomas at improv troupe
The Second City in
1977. Short came to public notice when the troupe produced a show for television, called
SCTV (
Second City Television), which ran for several years in
Canada and the
United States. Short was a cast member and performed several recurring characters. He was a member of the troupe for several years before moving on to
Saturday Night Live for the
1984-
1985 season.
[1] At SCTV, Short developed many characters which he later used at SNL, including:
Saturday Night Live
At "SNL", Short helped revive the show after
Eddie Murphy left with his many characters, including the
Wheel of Fortune fan Ed Grimley he borrowed from his SCTV days. The Grimley character became perhaps Short's best known original character. He also was recognized for his impersonations of celebrities, notably
Jerry Lewis and
Katharine Hepburn. SNL proved to be the springboard to a long career in film & TV.

Film
After doing sketch comedy for several years, Short focused on film roles, appearing in several films, including
Three Amigos,
Innerspace, and the
1991 remake of
Father of the Bride.
Theatre & other live performances
Short also resumed work in the theater, taking a role in the
1993 musical version of the
Neil Simon work
The Goodbye Girl. He had the lead role in the
1999 revival of the musical
Little Me, which earned him a
Tony Award.
Short performed in a satirical one-man show (with a full cast of six),
Martin Short: Fame Becomes Me, at the
Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre on
Broadway. The show toured several cities in the spring of
2006, began previews on
July 29,
2006, opened on
August 17 and closed on
January 7,
2007. In it, he performed his aforementioned classic characters Grimley, Cohen, and
Glick. As Glick, Short brought a member of the audience (usually a celebrity) on stage and interviews him or her.
Jerry Seinfeld was the guest on opening night and the subjects have included Kristin Chenoweth, Regis Philbin, Neil Simon, Diane Keaton, Jamie Lee Curtis, Richard Kind, David Schwimmer, David Hasselhoff and many more. The show also featured parodies of many celebrities including
Celine Dion,
Katharine Hepburn,
Elizabeth Taylor and
Richard Burton,
Tommy Tune,
Joan Rivers,
Britney Spears,
Ellen DeGeneres,
Renée Zellweger,
Jodie Foster and Short's wife,
actress Nancy Dolman.
The cast album was released on April 10th, 2007 and is available off of Ghostlight Records, an imprint of
Sh-K-Boom Records(www.sh-k-boom.com).
Awards and other recognition
For his work, Short has received recognition, including several prestigious awards:
Personal life
Short met
Canadian comic
actress Nancy Dolman during the run of the 1972 production of
Godspell. After that production, Short dated costar Radner, then began dating Dolman (Radner's understudy) in 1974. The couple married in 1980. Dolman was most notable for her recurring role on the
ABC cult
sitcom "
Soap",
SCTV, and "Custard Pie".
Dolman retired from show business in
1985 to be a
homemaker.[
citation needed] Short and Dolman have three children: Katherine Elizabeth (born
December 3,
1983), Oliver Patrick (born
1986), and Henry (born
1990). Short and his family make their home in
Pacific Palisades,
California, and Short has become a
naturalized U.S. citizen (but also maintains his Canadian citizenship).[
citation needed] They also have a home on
Lake Muskoka[5] in
Ontario,
Canada.
Short has a star on
Canada's Walk of Fame. A Roman Catholic, is often incorrectly identified as Jewish.
[2] His brother, Michael Short, is a comedy writer and a two-time
Emmy Award winner.
Extended family
Dolman's brother,
screenwriter/
director Bob Dolman (who served as a part of
SCTV's Emmy-winning writing team alongside Short), married their close friend and colleague
Andrea Martin, also in
1980. Dolman and Short are aunt and uncle to the couple's two sons, Jack (born
1981) and Joe (born
1983).
Bob Dolman and
Andrea Martin have since divorced.
[2]Also, Short is the first cousin of
Clare Short, a member of the
British Parliament and a former
British cabinet minister.
Filmography
Acting credits
As Writer
As Producer
As Director
'In Character' Quotes
- As Irving Cohen: "What hell kind of name is Roy!?"
- As Irving Cohen: "Give me a C, a bouncy C."
- As Irving Cohen (as his standard conclusion to an improvised song, of which he's sung a few bars, accompanied by replacing his cigar in his mouth): "...a dot dot dot, dee dee dee, and whatever the hell else you want to put in there."
- As Ed Grimley (indrawn breath): "I must say...".
- As Ed Grimley (clutching his burning fingers after removing a batch of cookies from the oven without using an oven mitt): "That's a pain that will tend to linger."
- As Bradley Allen: "You can't tell me that a woman who plays the tuba doesn't have a boyfriend somewhere... I mean who's going to carry the damn thing?"
- As Bradley Allen (drinking Scotch and declining tissues after a productive cough): "No, I got it."
- As Franck Eggelhoffer..."Everybody has party with a pooper, that's why we invited you, party pooper, GEORGE BANKS! That's who!"
- As Jack Frost (talking to a little girl who told him to chill) : "I invented chill!"