Search results
He has received three Golden Globe Award nominations, five Screen Actors Guild Award nominations, and fifteen Emmy Award nominations winning two Primetime Emmy Awards. He has also received two Tony Award nominations winning in 1999 for Best Actor in a Musical in Little Me.
YearCategoryNominated WorkResultPerformer in an Animated ProgramNominatedOutstanding Talk Show HostNominatedOutstanding Talk ShowNominatedOutstanding Comedy Series (as executive ...NominatedMartin Short. Jump to. 16 wins & 78 nominations. American Comedy Awards, USA. 1992 Nominee American Comedy Award. Funniest Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture. Father of the Bride. Banff Television Festival. 1999 Winner Sir Peter Ustinov Award. Critics Choice Awards. 2022 Nominee Critics Choice Award. Best Actor in a Comedy Series.
- March 26, 1950
News about Martin Short, Steve Martin, Brentwood
News about Dua Lipa, Kim Kardashian, Denzel Washington
News about Emmy Awards, lead actress, comedy series
Also in the news
Martin Short. Actor: Innerspace. Martin Hayter Short OC is a Canadian-American actor, comedian, singer, and writer. He has received various awards including two Primetime Emmy Awards, and a Tony Award. In 2019 Short became an Officer of the Order of Canada, and has received Medals from Queen Elizabeth II, including in 2002 the Queen Elizabeth ...
- March 26, 1950
16 Nominations | 2 Emmys. Outstanding Lead Actor In A Comedy Series - 2023. Nominee. Martin Short, as Oliver Putnam. Only Murders In The Building. Hulu. 20th Television. Outstanding Comedy Series - 2023. Nominee. Martin Short, Executive Producer. Only Murders In The Building. Hulu. 20th Television. Outstanding Lead Actor In A Comedy Series - 2022.
- Overview
- Early life
- Career
Martin Short (born March 26, 1950, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada) Emmy- and Tony-winning Canadian actor, comedian, and writer known for his work on television comedy shows such as SCTV Network and Saturday Night Live, movies such as Three Amigos! (1986) and Father of the Bride (1991), and, more recently, the streaming crime comedy series Only Murders i...
Short is the youngest of five children born to Olive (née Hayter) and Charles Patrick Short. He grew up in Hamilton, Ontario. His mother had been the concertmaster for the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra, and his father was an executive with Stelco, a large Canadian steel company. Growing up, Short idolized Frank Sinatra.
As a boy, Short put on pretend variety shows, playing different roles such as host, guest, and comedian. He also developed his comedy chops in his large, rambunctious Irish Roman Catholic family. He had to deal with a succession of tragedies, starting at the age of 12, when his eldest brother died in a car crash. Five years later he lost his mother to cancer, and, when Short was 20, his father died of a stroke. In his 2014 autobiography, I Must Say: My Life as a Humble Comedy Legend, he described how he was able to withstand these emotional blows: “When you’re met with fire early, you develop a certain Teflon quality.”
Short made his debut as a professional stage actor in 1972 in a Toronto production of Godspell, which also featured Levy, Andrea Martin, Gilda Radner and Victor Garber, alongside musical director Paul Shaffer. Short became romantically involved with Radner during the production, but he wound up marrying her Godspell understudy, actress Nancy Dolman. The couple would adopt three children. Dolman died of ovarian cancer in 2010 (as had Radner in 1989).
In 1977 Short became a cast member of the Toronto branch of the Second City improv company, where he developed a persona that would become among the most beloved of his many hilarious characters: the excitable, spastic Ed Grimley, whose hair rises to a gelled point, trouser waist climbs his midriff, and signature catchphrase is “I must say.” Grimley was a staple character for Short when, after a sojourn in Hollywood, he joined the cast of SCTV Network (earlier known as Second City Television or SCTV) starting with its 1981–82 season, reuniting with former classmates Levy and Thomas, along with other Second City alumni such as John Candy, Andrea Martin, Joe Flaherty, and Catherine O’Hara. Short won an Emmy Award in 1983 for his writing on the show.
Special offer for students! Check out our special academic rate and excel this spring semester!
Learn More
Short moved over to Saturday Night Live (SNL) for the 1984–85 season, joining an “all-star cast” that included Christopher Guest, Billy Crystal, and Harry Shearer. In I Must Say, Short described his one season on the show as a “roller coaster of elation and anxiety,” adding, “With thirty years’ perspective, I now recognize that I should have allowed myself to step back for a moment and simply exult in the privilege of doing that show.” One source of anxiety, he wrote, was having to be “funny on demand.”
The pace of SNL’s production was so harried that Short almost never saw his family: “The kind of show business I wanted was what I saw on The Dick Van Dyke Show,” he quipped in an interview with USA Today years later, “a 9–5 job and go back to New Rochelle.” Still, he had a number of memorable skits on SNL, including one in which he and Shearer played a pair of brothers who aspire to compete in the Olympics in the nonexistent sport of men’s synchronized swimming. Short’s character cannot swim, so he is shown in the pool wearing a life preserver. Guest plays their coach.
- Fred Frommer
An accomplished stage actor, Short won a Tony, Theatre World Award and an Outer Critics Circle Award for his role in the revival of Little Me. He was also nominated for a Tony and took home an Outer Critics Circle Award for the musical version of Neil Simon The Goodbye Girl.
Jun 9, 2023 · June 9, 2023 10:58am. D Dipasupil/FilmMagic. Martin Short, the guest on this episode of The Hollywood Reporter ’s Awards Chatter podcast, is one of the funniest people in show business and...
