Sixteen years after his wife’s death, Nancy Dolan, Martin Short he thinks about her last words – and discovers their connection to the couple’s late daughter, Katherine.
“Martin, let me go,” said Mfishane, 76 The New York Times in an interview published on Friday, May 15, recalling Dolan’s last message to her husband as paramedics rushed to their room.
Dolan died aged 58 in 2010 following a battle with ovarian cancer. She and Short have been married since 1980.
In his own The NYT sit down, Demo drew parallels between the deaths of Dolan and Katherine, who died by suicide at the age of 42 in February.
“Katherine was saying: ‘Dad, let me go,'” he continued. “I see no difference between mental illness as a disease and cancer as a disease. In some cases, both are fatal, and in other cases both are survivable.”
Short added that losing his daughter was different than losing his wife.
“This is your child,” she said. “I’m trying to look into the light.”
Short and Dolan also share sons Oliver, 40, and Henry, 36.
I Loner Criminals in the Building star broke his silence on the death of Katherine e CBS Sunday morning interview earlier this week.
“It’s been a nightmare for the family,” he said on Sunday, May 10. “But understanding.” [is] that mental health and cancer, like my wife’s, are both illnesses, and sometimes with illnesses they end. And my daughter fought for a long time with extreme mental health, borderline personality disorder, other things, and she did everything she could until she couldn’t.”
Short also reflected on his family’s death several times in his new Netflix book, Marty, Life is Short. (In addition to Dolan and Katherine, the actor lost his older brother, David, and both parents, Olive and Charles, eight years before he turned 21.)
“What grew in me was this body of survival and dealing with grief, and a perspective on it,” Short said. CBS Mornings of navigating that loss. “I think once you get past that, the audience that doesn’t like you doesn’t matter as much anymore.”
Although Short’s longtime friend Lawrence Kasdan, who directed the documentary, suggested delaying the project after Katherine’s death, the comedian said he wanted to move forward.
“My instinct was the opposite,” Short explained on Sunday. “Because it’s about love, loss and life… I think we’re moving on. We have to find a way to live through grief without denying it or without trivializing its importance.”
