Casual notes on show-biz books, memoirs and studies, dust gatherers, and hot off the presses.
Book Review by Samuel L. Leiter . . .
Martin Short. I Must Say: My Life as a Humble Comedy Legend (New York: Harper, 2014). 321pp.
28th Edition
Perhaps you know him as Ed Grimley, the plaid-shirted nerd with a unicorn pompadour and a question-mark posture. Or maybe it’s as Larry Orbach, the thinning-haired dimwit. Then again it might be Jackie Rogers, Jr., the glitzy, white-haired, albino lounge singer. Or perhaps it’s as Franck, the androgynous, verbally incomprehensible wedding planner in Steve Martin’s Father of the Bride movies. How about the smarmy, defensive defense lawyer, Nathan Thurm, he of the cigarette whose growing ash never falls off? Or the prolific old Jewish songwriter (composer of “Honey Do the Hula”) Irving Cohen, with a big cigar protruding from the center of his mouth? No? Then it’s surely the blubbery celebrity interviewer, Jiminy Glick, with his oversized black-framed eyeglasses.
Of course, all these hilariously bizarre, hilarity-powered personas (and many others) are the zany offspring of a single comic genius, the eternally boyish Martin Short. He of the effervescent smile first began bringing big laughs to TV, film, and theater audiences in the early 1970s. And, as the huge success of TV’s “Only Murders in the Building” (now beginning its fourth season) demonstrates, even at 74 he maintains his widespread popularity as a “humble comedy legend.” Those are his words, by the way, used in the subtitle of his absorbing 2014 memoir, I Must Say, which takes its main title from an Ed Grimley catchphrase.
Short, of course, has shared some of the material in this book during countless appearances on talk shows, like David Letterman’s, but his memoir remains a delightful trip through his life. It’s a journey filled not only with hysterically funny anecdotes involving A-list celebs, but with touching accounts of the several great tragedies of his life. I Must Say is the kind of book that makes you laugh till you cry and cry till you laugh.
Short was born in 1950 to a well-off family in Hamilton, Ontario, where his Ireland-born dad, Charles P., was an executive at Stelco, Canada’s largest steel manufacturer. His mom, Olive, was a violinist who headed the Hamilton Symphony Orchestra. The youngest of five siblings, Short grew up in a laughter-filled family of competitive jokesters (brother Michael became a comedy writer), where family dinner was “a sustained, survival-of-the-fittest verbal sparring match.” The happy bubble, though, was burst when his beloved brother, David, 14 years older, died in a car accident. Short reprints a lovely poem his devastated mother wrote afterward in David’s memory.
The family was Irish-Catholic, but Short—whose hometown had many Jews—was often considered Jewish, a subject that’s almost a leitmotiv in his book. Growing up among so many of the Chosen, he remembers that, when he was belatedly baptized at seven, he asked the priest, “Am I Jewish now?”
The other great losses he describes in heartbreaking detail were those of his enormously influential mom, at 55, his father when Marty was 20, and his wife, actress-singer Nancy Dolman, at 59, both women from cancer. Short’s descriptions of the beautiful Nancy—to whom he was married from 1980 to 2010, and with whom he raised three adopted kids—and his devotion to her during her cycles of illness-remission-illness bring tears even as I write this. Short even shares his thoughts on how one might consider handling such traumatic experiences. (Coincidentally, two memoirs soon to be covered here—those by Alan Rickman and Richard E. Grant—similarly chronicle the course and impact of fatal diseases, in the first case that of Rickman himself and in the second that of Grant’s wife.)
Short seriously fantasized in his boyhood bedroom about being a Sinatra-like singer, hosting his own imaginary show on the fictional Marty Broadcasting System, but he didn’t seriously consider being a professional entertainer. Even when he took part in college theatricals, he was planning a career in social work, but a fellow student at Hamilton’s McMaster University, future comic star Eugene Levy, persuaded him to give it a try.
The try, beginning with booking commercials in Toronto, soon led to a part as a tough guy in the gay-themed prison drama Fortune and Men’s Eyes (1973), for which he admits being miscast. Things began looking up when he landed a part in the highly regarded 1973 Toronto production of Godspell, whose cast included Levy, Victor Garber, Andrea Martin, and Gilda Radner, each destined for stardom, as well as lifelong friendships and collaborations. Radner, 26, in fact, began a two-year love affair with the 22-year-old Short, which he describes fondly.
Short tells of his ongoing success, only now and then running into slowdowns, as he achieved a live theater triumph with Toronto’s Second City troupe. This was followed by various TV series, most impressively “SCTV,” and “Saturday Night Live”; he initially rejected the latter before accepting, but left after only one season because he hated the weekly grind. (He says “SCTV” was better organized.)
He had a red-hot period from 1985 when, beginning with ¡Three Amigos!, he starred in a string of movies, although none were box office gold. With few exceptions, he did better in films where he played a supporting role, like the Father of the Bride franchise. In Clifford (1994), though, in which—at 40—he played Charles Grodin’s 10-year-old son, a flop became a cult favorite.
Recognized as one of the most energetically likable, over-the-top, versatile clowns of the day (he could sing as well), Short did tons of TV and film before becoming a Broadway star in a 1993 musical version of Neil Simon’s The Goodbye Girl (Tony nomination), and a 1998 revival of Simon’s Little Me (Tony award), not to mention his 2006 one-man show, Martin Short: Fame Becomes Me, with which he toured extensively. He’s toured widely in various one- and two-man shows, often with Steve Martin, one of his closest friends for decades.
Short’s book notes mainly career highlights and lowlights; it lacks a résumé, however, so interested readers can find the true extent of his countless contributions by a trip to Wikipedia. And, for an immediate jolt of laughter, nothing beats a visit to the many clips of him on YouTube. For starters, I recommend his two-decades-old Jiminy Glick interview with Ellen DeGeneres, and, more recently, with Bill Maher.
As anticipated, Short is long on anecdotes. While some names are simply dropped to establish context, most he mentions are fuel for great stories, the percentage of funny ones being considerably high. In addition to tales about those already mentioned, fans of the following—many of shared Canadian roots—will relish reading inside showbiz dope about them: Paul Shaffer, Chevy Chase, Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson, Steven Spielberg, Dan Aykroyd, Nora Ephron, Rick Moranis, Billy Crystal, Christopher Guest, Dave Thomas, Catherine O’Hara, John Candy, Lorne Michaels, Mike Nichols, Harry Shearer, Larry David, Jan Hooks, Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn, and that’s just for starters.
Of those not in Short’s immediate circle, there are great anecdotes featuring Shirley MacLaine, Katharine Hepburn, Ronan Farrow, Jerry Lewis, Sammy Davis, Jr., George Harrison, Bette Davis, Kathie Lee Gifford, and Meryl Streep, the latter rumored to recently have become more than a professional friend.
Although the book has career and personal photos, it lacks an index, so useful for future reference. A strong point is Short’s use of “Interludes” that introduce the characters mentioned in my first paragraph, followed by brief monologues they might deliver. Some readers may also find valuable Short’s expansive description of his Nine Categories, “a rigorous self-examination system” by which he regulates his life. There’s lots more to enjoy, like his penis stories, his Colonoscopy Eves, his and Nancy’s Christmas parties, his homes in L.A.’s Pacific Palisades and on Ontario’s Rousseau Lake, and his thoughts on celebrity.
Instead—because why not?—I’ll close with a description of President 45 by wedding planner Franck, whom Short describes as of “indeterminate” gender, nationality, and vowel pronunciation. It was written in 2014, two years before 45 became a walking joke as the POTUS: “Donald Trump? He looks like a bouncer in a lesbian bar. That’s not just hair, you see, it’s a way to see if there’s a wind advisory.”
Coming up: Alan Rickman, Madly, Deeply: The Diaries of Alan Rickman.
Leiter Looks at Books welcomes inquiries from publishers and authors interested in having their theater/show business-related books reviewed.
