Detailed Biography

Martin Hayter Short, CM is a Canadian-American comedian, actor, writer, singer and producer. He is best known for his comedy work, particularly on the TV programs SCTV and Saturday Night Live. He has also starred in several comedic films such as Mars Attacks! and Father of the Bride.

Early life

Short, youngest of five children, was born in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, the son of Olive , a violinist, and Charles Patrick Short, a corporate executive with Stelco, a Canadian steel company. Short's father came to North America in 1921 as a stowaway Roman Catholic refugee from South Armagh, Northern Ireland during the Irish War of Independence. His mother, who was the concertmaster of the Hamilton Symphony Orchestra, encouraged his early creative endeavours.

Short attended Westdale Secondary School and graduated in 1972 from McMaster University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in social work. 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.

Career

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 He was subsequently cast in several television shows and plays, including an intense topical drama, Fortune and Men's Eyes.

In 1979, Short starred in the TV sitcom The Associates about a group of young novice lawyers working at a Wall Street law firm.

Short then joined the cast of I'm a Big Girl Now, a sitcom vehicle for Diana Canova 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 Second City Television or SCTV, 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. At SCTV, Short developed many characters which he later used at SNL: Talk show host Brock Linehan, based on the Canadian interviewer Brian Linehan.
Aged songwriter Irving Cohen, loosely based on American composer Irving Caesar.
Spurious albino entertainer Jackie Rogers, Jr.
Current-events commentator Troy Soren
Industrialist and art patron Bradley P. Allen
Defensive attorney Nathan Thurm
Oddball man-child Ed Grimley. This character was later featured in his own animated television series, The Completely Mental Misadventures of Ed Grimley.

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, and for the character of Nathan Thurm. 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 many films, including ¡Three Amigos!, Innerspace, The Big Picture, Captain Ron, Clifford, Mars Attacks!, and the 1991 remake of Father of the Bride as well as the sequel. In 2004 he wrote and starred in Jiminy Glick in Lalawood, with Jan Hooks as his wife, Dixie Glick. Also in 1997 he appeared as Richard Kempster in Jungle 2 Jungle which starred Tim Allen. He starred in another movie with Tim Allen in 2006 The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause. Short was also in Pure Luck directed by Nadia Tass with Danny Glover and Sheila Kelley, and in Three Fugitives directed by Francis Veber with Nick Nolte and James Earl Jones. He also played Thimbletack the Brownie from the Spiderwick Chronicles.

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, receiving a Tony Award nomination as well an Outer Critic Circle Award. He had the lead role in the 1999 revival of the musical Little Me, which earned him a Tony Award and another Outer Critic Circle Award.

Short performed in his satirical one-man show , 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 on stage and interviews him or her. Jerry Seinfeld was the guest on opening night and the subjects have included Bill Maher, Kristin Chenoweth, Tom Burg, 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, Rachel Ray and Short's wife, actress Nancy Dolman.

The cast album was released on April 10, 2007 and is available from Ghostlight Records, an imprint of Sh-K-Boom Records.

During 2008 and 2009 Short continues to tour his comedy show, which features many of his best loved characters and skits.

Personal life

Relationships

Short met Canadian comic actress Nancy Dolman during the run of the 1972 production of Godspell. After that production, Short dated costar Gilda Radner, then began dating Dolman in 1974. The couple married in 1980.

Dolman retired from show business in 1985 to be a homemaker. Short and Dolman have three children: Katherine Elizabeth , Oliver Patrick , and Henry Hayter . Short and his family make their home in Pacific Palisades, California, and Short has become a naturalized U.S. citizen, as well as a citizen of the United Kingdom. The Shorts also have a home on Lake Rosseau in Ontario, Canada.

Short has two stars on Canada's Walk of Fame. He is a Roman Catholic. His brother, Michael Short, is a comedy writer and twice winner of the Emmy Award for comedy sketch writing.

Extended family

Dolman's brother, screenwriter/director Bob Dolman , 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 and Joe . Bob Dolman and Andrea Martin have since divorced. Short is the first cousin of Clare Short, a member of the British Parliament and a former British cabinet minister.

Awards and honors