Short, youngest of five children, was born in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, the son of Olive (née Hayter), a violinist, and Charles Patrick Short, a corporate executive with Stelco, a Canadian steel company. Short's father was a Roman Catholic refugee from Crossmaglen, South Armagh, Northern Ireland, who came to North America as a stowaway during the Irish War of Independence. His mother, who was the concertmaster of the Hamilton Symphony Orchestra, encouraged Martin's early creative endeavours. 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; and, two years later in 1970, his father died of complications from a stroke.

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

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 that same year. Among other members of that production's cast were Victor Garber, Gilda Radner, Eugene Levy, Dave Thomas, and Andrea Martin; Paul Shaffer was the Musical Director. He was subsequently cast in several television shows and plays, including the intense topical drama Fortune and Men's Eyes. He worked solely in Canada through 1979.

In 1979, Short starred in the U.S. sitcom The Associates about a group of young novice lawyers working at a Wall Street law firm. In 1980, he joined the cast of I'm a Big Girl Now, a sitcom starring Diana Canova. Canova was offered the sitcom because of her success playing Corinne Tate Flotsky on ABC's Soap and left Soap 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, whom he joined at improv troupe The Second City in 1977. Short came to public notice when the troupe produced a show for television, Second City Television or SCTV, which ran for several years in Canada and the United States. At SCTV, Short developed several characters before moving on to Saturday Night Live for the 1984-1985 season:

• 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
• Defense attorney Nathan Thurm
• Oddball man-child Ed Grimley, 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 with his many characters after Eddie Murphy left. Short's SNL characters included Wheel of Fortune fan Ed Grimley, which he borrowed from his SCTV days. The Grimley character became 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 and TV.

Television

In addition to his revered work on SCTV and SNL, Short has starred in several television specials and series of his own. In 1985, Short starred in the one-hour Showtime special, Martin Short: Concert for the North Americas. This is Short's first live concert, interspersed with studio sketches and a wraparound featuring Jackie Rogers Jr. Co-produced by the CBC, this aired as The Martin Short Comedy Special in Canada in March 1986. In 1989, Short headlined another one-hour comedy special, this time for HBO, I, Martin Short, Goes Hollywood, Short's classic send-up of all things Hollywood. It featured many of his characters including: Lawrence Orbach, Ed Grimley, Jackie Rogers Jr, Bradley P Allen, Troy Soren, and Dale O'Day (the dancing fence); released on VHS, it is now out of print. Martin Short has had no less than three shows called The Martin Short Show, including a sitcom (The Martin Short Show, 1994), a sketch comedy show (The Show Formerly Known as the Martin Short Show, 1995), and a syndicated talk show (The Martin Short Show, 1999). Short starred as Jiminy Glick on Comedy Central's Primetime Glick (2001—03). In addition to his own series, Short has guest starred on several shows including Arrested Development, SVU and most recently in a critically acclaimed turn as Leonard Winstone on FX's Damages. As of August 2010, Short lends his voice in The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That! as The Cat in the Hat on Public Broadcasting Service.

Film

After doing sketch comedy for several years, Short focused on film...appearing in ¡Three Amigos!, Innerspace, The Big Picture, Captain Ron, Clifford, and the 1991 remake of Father of the Bride and its sequel. In 1996, he appeared in Tim Burton's sci-fi comedy Mars Attacks! as image-obsessed, hormonally driven Press Secretary Jerry Ross. 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 Wall Street broker Richard Kempster in Jungle 2 Jungle starring Tim Allen. In 2006, he starred in another movie with Tim Allen, 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 theSpiderwick Chronicles.

On August 31, 2007, he appeared as the new host of O Canada!, a 360° Circlevision® film premiering at Walt Disney World's EPCOT theme park.

Stage

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 and an Outer Critic Circle Award.

He had the lead role in the 1999 Broadway revival of the musical Little Me, which earned him a Tony Award and another Outer Celtic Circle Award.

In 2003, Short took to the stage once again in the critically acclaimed Los Angeles run of The Producers. Short played the role of the accountant, Leo Bloom, opposite Jason Alexander's Max Bialystock. Although the role of Leo Bloom was originated on Broadway by Matthew Broderick, Mel Brooks first approached Short about doing the part opposite Nathan Lane. On the subject, Short has stated in numerous interviews that, while he was thrilled by the opportunity, the idea of having to move his family from their Los Angeles home to New York for a year was less than ideal and ultimately proved a deal-breaker.

Short performed in his 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 July 29; opened August 17; and closed January 7, 2007. In it, he performed his 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 Al Roker, Bebe Neuwirth, Ben Stiller, Bernadette Peters, Bette Midler, Bill Maher, Bob Costas, Brian Williams, Chris Matthews, Chris Noth, Conan O'Brien, David Hasselhoff, David Schwimmer, Dennis Miller, Diane Keaton, Doris Roberts, Dylan Baker, Gene Simmons, Goldie Hawn, Isaac Mizrahi, James Belushi, Jamie Lee Curtis, Jerry Springer, Jimmy Fallon, Joe Scarborough, Jon Stewart, Kathleen Turner, Kathryn Erbe, Kevin Nealon, Kevin Pollak, Kristin Chenoweth, Larry King, Mariska Hargitay, Martha Stewart, Michael Kors, Michael Riedel, Molly Shannon, Nathan Lane, Neil Patrick Harris, Neil Simon, Nia Vardalos, Regis Philbin, Richard Kind, Rita Wilson, Roseanne, Rosie O'Donnell, Sean Hayes, Spencer Breslin, Stanley Tucci, Stephen Colbert, Steve Martin, Susan Lucci, Toni Senecal, Tracey Ullman, Tucker Carlson, Victor Garber 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.

Since the closure of Fame Becomes Me, Short has continued to tour in his one-man show, which features many of his best-loved characters and sketches. In addition to Fame Becomes Me, some of the titles Short has used for his one-man show include "Stroke Me Lady Fame", "If I'd Saved, I Wouldn't Be Here", and, in more conservative markets, "Sunday in the Park with George Michael".

Relationships

Short met Canadian comic actress Nancy Dolman in 1972 during the run of Godspell. He dated co-star Gilda Radner for most of the show's run then began dating Dolman, who was Radner's understudy, in 1974. The couple married in 1980.

Dolman retired from show business in 1985 to be a homemaker and raise her family. Short and Dolman had three children: Katherine Elizabeth (born December 2, 1983), Oliver Patrick (born April 29, 1986) and Henry Hayter (born August 4, 1989). Short and his family make their home in Pacific Palisades, California; and Short is 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.It was reported on August 23, 2010, by the Huffington Post and various media outlets, that Nancy Dolman Short had died. Short's representative confirmed the news but did not reveal the cause. It was later confirmed that the cause of death was cancer.

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 (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). Mr. Dolman and Ms. Martin have since divorced. Short is the first cousin of Clare Short, a former member of the British Parliament and a former British cabinet minister.

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