Martin Short has spoken publicly for the first time about the death of his daughter, Katherine Short, describing her passing as "a nightmare for the family." Katherine died in February at her home in the Hollywood Hills at the age of 42. The County of Los Angeles Medical Examiner's office confirmed that she died by suicide.
In an interview with CBS News Sunday Morning, the 76-year-old comedian and actor compared his daughter's death to that of his wife, Nancy Dolman, who passed away from ovarian cancer in 2010 at the age of 58. "The understanding is that mental health and cancer, like my wife's, are both diseases, and sometimes with diseases they are terminal," Short said. "My daughter fought for a long time with extreme mental health issues, borderline personality disorder, and other things, and did the best she could until she couldn't."
Short recalled his wife's last words: "Martin, let me go." He added, "And what Katherine was just saying was, 'Dad, let me go.'" The actor expressed a "deep desire" to bring mental health "out of the shadows" so that people would not feel "ashamed" to discuss it. "Not hiding from the word suicide, but accepting that this can be the last stage of an illness," he explained.
Short also spoke about losing several close friends and family members in the past year, including his sister-in-law and friends Diane Keaton, Rob and Michele Reiner, and Catherine O'Hara. "It's staggering," he said, adding, "You just have to breathe in, breathe out."
Katherine was the eldest of three children adopted by Short and Dolman. She largely stayed out of the spotlight but occasionally attended events and walked red carpets with her father. She earned a bachelor's degree in psychology and gender sexuality studies from New York University in 2006 and a master's in social work from the University of Southern California in 2010, working as a licensed clinical social worker in private practice.
Short had previously spoken about losing Dolman, telling the Guardian in 2012: "This is the thing of life that we live in denial about, that it will ever happen to us or our loved ones, and when it does you gain a little and you suffer a little. There's no big surprise."
Short's interview comes ahead of a new Netflix documentary about his life titled Marty, Life Is Short, premiering on 12 May. The film touches on his many experiences with loss early in life: his older brother David died in a car accident when Short was 12, and both of his parents died while he was still a teenager. Short said this led him to develop "this muscle of survival and handling grief and a perspective on it," as well as the bravery to become a performer. "I think if you've gone through that, an audience not liking you is really not that important anymore," he said.
