Veteran actor Martin Short recently opened up about the death of his daughter, alongside other personal tragedies he has faced throughout his life. Despite the emotional toll, Short continues to make audiences laugh. A new documentary, Marty: Life Is Short, takes a deeper look at his life and career.
Martin Short says daughter Katherine fought for a long time’ before death
Martin Short is known for his highly energetic comedy. He is now the subject of a new documentary by Lawrence Kasdan, Marty: Life Is Short.
Short discussed the defining losses in his life. He also spoke publicly about the death of his daughter for the first time.
Martin was 12 when his older brother was killed in a car accident. He was still in his teens when both his parents died. Short said he became familiar with grief from a very early age. “What it developed in me was this muscle of survival and handling grief and a perspective on it,” he said about the experience (via CBS).
He said that those experiences also helped him handle performing on stage. “I think if you’ve gone through that, an audience not liking you is really not that important anymore,” Short explained.
In 2010, Short lost his wife, Nancy Dolman, to ovarian cancer. The couple had been married for 30 years. “It was an equal ping pong match… although Tom Hanks would go up to Nancy, ‘Aren’t you tired of laughing at his jokes?’” he said about his late wife.
But the most recent tragedy came this past February. Short’s daughter, Katherine, a social worker, died by suicide at the age of 42.
“It’s been a nightmare for the family,” Short said. “But the understanding [is] that mental health and cancer, like my wife’s, 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.”
He added, “So, Nan’s last words to me were, ‘Martin, let me go.’ And what she was just saying [was], ‘Dad, let me go.’”
Marty: Life Is Short premieres on Netflix on May 12.
