Steve Martin documentary details Katherine Hartley Short's death
steve martin turns his family losses into the center of Marty, Life is Short, which premieres on May 12. The documentary reaches back across decades of grief, but the newest wound is Katherine Hartley Short’s February death at 42.
Martin Short says in the trailer that he “had a speed dial to the funeral parlor,” then adds, “There were laughs during those years.… that’s the point.” He also says, “In life, sometimes you hit a green light. And sometimes, for no reason, it’s red.”
Michael, Andrea Martin, and the trailer
Old footage in the trailer shows Short dancing with Katherine and her two siblings when they were young, a visual that pulls the documentary away from career nostalgia and into family memory. Andrea Martin says, “Being a dad, it’s as genuine as his breath.”
Short and Nancy Dolman had three adopted children: Katherine, Oliver and Henry. Dolman died in 2010 after a years-long battle with ovarian cancer, and Short said in 2012, “We were together for 36 years, but I would have been divorced five times if I hadn’t found the right person.”
Five siblings, three losses
Short is the youngest of five siblings, and the documentary reaches back to losses that shaped the public picture of his private life. His eldest brother died in a car accident when Short was 12, his mother, Olive Hayter, died from cancer when he was 17, and his father, Charles Patrick Short, died from a stroke two years later.
Katherine Hartley Short died by suicide in February, and a representative for Short said on Feb. 24 that she had died. The documentary does not just add another credit to his filmography; it packages the family history that has sat behind it for years, with the trailer choosing to show both the jokes and the funerals in the same breath.
May 12 and the next viewing
The premiere on May 12 puts that private history in front of a wider audience at the same moment the title promises a career story. Viewers who press play will not be getting a simple tribute reel; they will be watching a documentary that treats grief as part of the record, not a footnote to it.
