• Lawrence Kasdan’s documentary Marty, Life Is Short is now streaming on Netflix
• The film covers Martin Short’s decades-long career alongside deeply personal stories about love and loss
• It features interviews with Steve Martin, Tom Hanks, Eugene Levy, and the late Catherine O’Hara, to whom the film is dedicated
• Short’s wife Nancy Dolman, who died in 2010, is central to the documentary’s emotional core
• The Hollywood screening drew Selena Gomez, Billy Crystal, Jerry Seinfeld, Kate Hudson, and more

Martin Short has spent roughly 40 years making people laugh, and Marty, Life Is Short — Lawrence Kasdan’s warm, funny, and quietly devastating new documentary — makes a compelling case that he’s never really stopped. The film, now streaming on Netflix, is the kind of portrait that earns its emotion honestly: it doesn’t manufacture tears, it just follows a man who has lived a lot of life and kept showing up anyway.

“Let’s say you’re going to host a dinner party and you invite Marty,” Steve Martin tells viewers early on. “Then it turns out Marty can’t come? You cancel the party.” It’s a line that gets a laugh, but it also sets the tone for everything that follows — a film about someone so fundamentally committed to joy that the people around him have organized their lives around it.

A Life That Earns Its Title

Kasdan — the writer of Raiders of the Lost Ark and director of The Big Chill — is not an objective observer here. He and Short have been close friends for decades, a relationship that dates back to the 1999 dark comedy Mumford, and the two have had, by Short’s own count, “thousands of lunches.” The film opens with Short joking that he’s worried the whole thing will be a hatchet job he’ll refuse to promote. It is not a hatchet job.

What it is, at 101 minutes, is a generous and clear-eyed look at a career that Short himself describes as “80 percent failure” — a number he later revises upward to 90, and which collaborator John Mulaney quotes as 98. The math is grim, but the spirit isn’t. Films like Captain Ron, Pure Luck, and the legendarily strange Clifford — in which Short played a 10-year-old boy, prompting Roger Ebert to write that “it’s not bad in any usual way; it’s bad in a new way all its own” — are accounted for honestly. The documentary even includes on-set footage from Captain Ron that makes the point plainly: a movie can be a critical and commercial disaster and still be a genuinely fun experience to make.

But what’s more interesting than the flops is how Short processed them. His mantra, repeated throughout the film in various forms, is essentially: keep moving. “98 percent of it is failure; nothing works and then something works.” It’s a philosophy he didn’t arrive at by accident.

Short grew up as the youngest of five children in Hamilton, Ontario, where, as he puts it, “I profited from trickle-down comedy” — the family’s currency was making each other laugh. Then, when he was 12, his eldest brother David was killed in a car accident. His mother Olive, the concertmistress of the Hamilton Symphony Orchestra, died of cancer when Short was 18. His father Charles died two years after that. By the time he was 20, both parents were gone. Short describes the choice that period forced on him: collapse and “become defeated forever,” or “learn that life is short and have a glass of wine and fun.”

He chose the wine.

Where It All Started

The documentary traces Short’s path from pre-med student to social work graduate to, eventually, one of the most distinctive comic performers of his generation. The turning point was a now-legendary 1972 Toronto production of Godspell — a cast so stacked it will reportedly be the subject of its own upcoming documentary — that featured Short alongside Eugene Levy, Andrea Martin, Gilda Radner, and Victor Garber. From there came Second City Toronto, then SCTV, then a stint on Saturday Night Live in the mid-’80s, and then Hollywood.

The SCTV alumni are among the film’s most valuable voices. Levy and Andrea Martin offer anecdotes going back to college. And then there is Catherine O’Hara — who appears throughout the documentary in interviews and archival footage, and to whom the film is dedicated. Seeing O’Hara so soon after her death is genuinely hard. She is radiant and funny and warm in every frame, a reminder of everything that made her so beloved, and her presence in the film carries a particular weight that Kasdan doesn’t try to soften.

The film is also dedicated to Short’s daughter Katherine, who passed away earlier this year. Her death is not discussed in the documentary — nor is O’Hara’s. Kasdan made a deliberate choice to keep the film’s grief largely offscreen, which is either a limitation or an act of mercy depending on how you look at it. What it means in practice is that the closing title cards — coming immediately after a bit where Short’s alter ego Jiminy Glick dismisses the very idea of a Martin Short documentary — land like a gut punch. The whiplash is the point.

The Home Movies Are Everything

If there’s a single element that elevates Marty, Life Is Short above the crowded field of recent comedy-legend docs — and it is crowded, with films on Steve Martin, Chevy Chase, Eddie Murphy, Gene Wilder, and Lorne Michaels all arriving in recent years — it’s the home footage. Short has been filming his life for decades, and what’s captured on those tapes is extraordinary.

There are the raucous holiday parties at Short’s Pacific Palisades home, where guests like Sally Field climb pianos and Andrea Martin jokes about hiring a vocal coach to perform for the occasion. There are summers at the Short family’s lake cottage in Ontario — the Malibu of the North, as it’s been called — where Tom Hanks and Short reenact the final jump scene from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid while Steven Spielberg mans the camcorder. There’s Goldie Hawn blowing kisses at the lens while Kurt Russell looks amused behind her. There’s Short narrating a storm rolling in off the lake, or flirting with his wife Nancy in the kitchen, or just playing with his kids on the deck.

Nancy Dolman is the film’s emotional center. She and Short met during that 1972 Godspell production and were married for 30 years until her death in 2010. Everyone Kasdan interviews describes them as the perfect couple. The documentary leans into that, treating the marriage less as a tragedy to be mourned and more as a love story to be celebrated — closer in spirit to Judd Apatow’s recent treatment of Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft than to a conventional grief narrative. It works.

“Marty operates at the speed of joy,” Tom Hanks says at the film’s end. “Marty is doing it because the opportunity is there to have a blast.”

Why Some People Can’t Stand Him (And Why That’s Part of the Point)

One of the more honest things Marty, Life Is Short does is acknowledge, head-on, that Martin Short is not universally beloved. A 2023 Slate piece by Dan Kois examined Short’s “manic, slightly creepy intensity” and prompted fierce pushback from both fans and fellow celebrities. The documentary doesn’t pretend that criticism doesn’t exist.

Short’s comedy — built around characters like the perpetually gelled manchild Ed Grimley and the obnoxious entertainment journalist Jiminy Glick, who appeared in a fat suit and thick glasses — has always been maximalist. “I always figured that if you walked on stage and you looked totally insane, you’d get a laugh,” Short says, “and then you were halfway there.” That approach works brilliantly or it doesn’t land at all, and Short has always known it. “It’s actually quite hard to make a completely bizarre character real,” Steve Martin says. “And that’s what he does.”

The film closes with Glick himself weighing in on the documentary’s subject. “I don’t really find him very interesting,” Glick says of Short. “I find people who push too hard and are desperate for the approval without really presenting any reason for the approval — I find it offensive.” Then: “There’s basically three voices, two hairstyles, and four dance moves. And you can’t build an empire on that.”

It’s the biggest joke in the movie. And it’s also, somehow, a kind of answer.

The Screening Was Its Own Event

The Hollywood premiere of Marty, Life Is Short was about as Martin Short as a Martin Short documentary screening could be. The guest list included Short’s Godspell co-stars Eugene Levy and Andrea Martin, his Only Murders in the Building co-star Selena Gomez, and a constellation of famous friends: Jimmy Kimmel, Billy Crystal, Jerry Seinfeld, Kate Hudson, Paul Shaffer, and Brian Grazer, who served as executive producer.

Gomez, who plays Mabel alongside Short’s Oliver Putnam and Steve Martin’s Charles-Haden Savage on the Hulu hit, posted her reaction after seeing the film. “This man who doesn’t have social media is truly outstandingly witty, smart and has given the most wonderful attributes to our world of comedy,” she wrote on Instagram. “Martin Short is nothing short of a legend. His outlook on life is simply joyful… thank you Marty for your inspiring and tremendous heart that makes me forever happy.”

Short, for his part, has been busy. During a recent appearance on CBS Sunday Morning, he teased that he and Only Murders co-star Meryl Streep are developing a Broadway show together — which, if it happens, would add yet another chapter to a career that has already included a Tony Award for Little Me, the stage version of The Producers, Hairspray Live!, and the musical series Schmigadoon!

Marty, Life Is Short is not a complete picture of Martin Short’s life — it can’t be, and Kasdan doesn’t pretend otherwise. But it is a deeply felt one, made by a friend who wanted to capture something true about a man who has chosen, over and over, to meet the world with laughter. Whether that makes you want to cancel the dinner party or just buy a ticket to the show probably says something about you. Either way, the documentary makes its case warmly and well.

The post Martin Short’s Netflix Doc Is a Joyful, Bittersweet Ride appeared first on Cream.

• Martin Short’s new Netflix documentary Marty: Life Is Short is out now, directed by Lawrence Kasdan
• Short lost his brother at 12, both parents before 21, his wife Nancy to ovarian cancer in 2010, and daughter Katherine to suicide in February 2025
• The film is dedicated to Katherine and to Second City legend Catherine O’Hara, who died in January
• Short’s son Oliver lost his home in the LA wildfires; Short’s Pacific Palisades house was spared
• A possible Broadway collaboration with Meryl Streep is in the works, plus a new season of Only Murders in the Building

Tom Hanks once said that Martin Short “operates at the speed of joy.” Short’s response, characteristically, was to deflect the compliment with a grin: “If that’s his review for me, I’ll accept it.” But after learning everything Short has quietly carried through five decades of one of comedy’s most beloved careers, the description lands differently. It doesn’t just feel like a compliment. It feels like a survival strategy.

Marty: Life Is Short, a new Netflix documentary out now, is directed by Hollywood legend Lawrence Kasdan — a close family friend who had to do some convincing to get Short in front of the camera at all. “It was not a natural instinct of his to want it; he’s not like that,” Kasdan said. “I had to sell him on it. I had to lie to him, tell him how much I loved him and I would never hurt him.” The result is something genuinely rare: a film that is, as Short himself might put it, hilarious and heartbreaking at the same time.

Kasdan weaves in hours of home movies alongside appearances from Short’s famous inner circle — Hanks, Kurt Russell, Steven Spielberg, Ron Howard. But for all the warmth and laughter on screen, the film doesn’t look away from the losses that have quietly defined this man’s life.

A Childhood That Taught Him How to Grieve

Short was the youngest of five children. He was 12 years old when his older brother was killed in a car accident. He was still a teenager when both of his parents died — gone before he turned 21. By the time he was old enough to drink, he had already buried three members of his immediate family.

At a Netflix event in Los Angeles hosted by David Letterman, Letterman reflected on watching Short’s story unfold on screen: “One thing that struck me was your childhood.” Short, now 76, has had a long time to sit with what that kind of early loss does to a person. “What it developed in me was this muscle of survival and handling grief and a perspective on it,” he told CBS News. And strangely, he says, it also freed him as a performer. “I think if you’ve gone through that, an audience not liking you is really not that important anymore.”

That fearlessness brought him to Toronto’s Second City in 1977, where he trained alongside legends-in-the-making: Eugene Levy, John Candy, and Catherine O’Hara. O’Hara, who died in January, is one of two people the documentary is dedicated to. Short’s tribute to her is tender and specific. “There was no one more brilliant. There was no one sweeter. And there was no one funnier. And she, more than anyone on ‘SCTV,’ would sit behind the camera and give you suggestions. ‘Marty, try that.’ ‘Oh, okay.’ And then you always just did it.”

His first professional job, incidentally, was the original Toronto production of Godspell — alongside a young Gilda Radner. Even the early chapters of his career read like a who’s who of comedy royalty.

Nancy, Katherine, and the Losses That Don’t Stop

The film’s emotional center is the life Short built with his wife Nancy Dolman, whom he met during his Toronto days and married in 1980. They were together for 30 years before she died of ovarian cancer in 2010. “She was funny. She had lots of edge,” Short said. “It was an equal ping pong match.” He smiled recalling how even Hanks would walk up to Nancy and ask, “Aren’t you tired of laughing at his jokes?”

During Nancy’s final months, Short continued to work — partly because she wanted him to. He was shooting the legal thriller Damages, and no one on set knew what was happening at home. “Glenn [Close] would go, ‘Marty’s here, yay!!'” he remembered. “And I’d go, ‘Okay. Let me just go to the dressing room for a second. … Okay, then.'” He’s honest that it wasn’t exactly therapeutic. “I don’t know if it helped. 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?”

Nancy’s final words to him, he says, were: “Martin, let me go.”

The film’s second dedication is to their daughter Katherine, a social worker who died by suicide this past February at 42. Short speaks about her death with a directness that feels both painful and purposeful. “It’s been a nightmare for the family,” he 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 connects the two losses with a quiet devastation: “So, Nan’s last words to me were, ‘Martin, let me go.’ And what she was just saying was, ‘Dad, let me go.'”

Still Finding Reasons to Keep Going

Short has lived in Pacific Palisades since November 1987 — a house he bought on the strength of two movie deals, one of which collapsed the moment he signed the mortgage. He laughed telling the story: Nancy’s response at the time was simply, “Then we’d move?” His home survived last year’s devastating LA wildfires. His son Oliver’s did not. Oliver and his wife are currently staying in Newport Beach while they figure out next steps.

Short described a moment of raw honesty that happened on the drive to visit them. “I was thinking, ‘Okay. I’m 75. Why am I continuing? Like, really why? I’m not gonna crash my car, but why? What is the point of this?'” And then he arrived, and Oliver’s two little boys — ages five and four — came running. “‘Papa! Let’s play giant!’ And suddenly you go, ‘Oh, that’s why. That’s why. Okay.'”

In the documentary, Ron Howard asks him directly: “Why do you continue to push yourself?” Short’s answer, delivered with his trademark comic timing, is also completely sincere: “I just think it’s important, if you’re ‘gifted,’ to share that gift, of course, with people!”

There’s plenty ahead to push toward. A new season of Only Murders in the Building shoots soon. And Short casually dropped that he and Meryl Streep are working on something for Broadway — though he’s playing coy on details. “We are trying to figure out something; we’re just not sure if the box office would be there,” he deadpanned. “It’s a gamble. You never know how Meryl’s gonna do at the box office, but let’s hope!”

When the darkness has been as heavy as it has for Martin Short — and it has been relentlessly, unfairly heavy — “heading for the light” isn’t a platitude. It’s the whole strategy. “You head for the light,” he said simply, when asked how he gets through it. “That’s what you have to do.”

If you or someone you know is in emotional distress or a suicidal crisis, you can reach the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by calling or texting 988. You can also chat online at 988lifeline.org.

The post Martin Short Opens Up on Loss, Joy and Life’s Hardest Chapters appeared first on Cream.