Martin Short Gets Honest: What It’s Like to Be All Over the Emmy Race, Thanks to Three Very Different Projects
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- Martin Short earned three distinct Emmy nominations: outstanding comedy lead actor and comedy series (as EP) for Hulu's 'Only Murders in the Building,' game show host for ABC's 'Match Game,' and three noms tied to the Netflix documentary 'Marty, Life Is Short' (which he didn't produce).
- Lawrence Kasdan left Short an eight-minute phone message explaining why his story — using humor to work through grief — needed to be told, convincing the reluctant star to participate in the documentary produced with Ron Howard and Imagine.
- Short contributed shelves of home camcorder footage he had filmed over years with his kids, and Steven Spielberg also handed over home movies he had shot with Short, giving Kasdan what Short called 'a great little treasure trove.'
- Short chose to proceed with the documentary's release after his daughter Katherine's death in February, telling Kasdan it could be called 'Love, Loss and Survival' and framing mental health struggles as a disease 'like cancer.'
- Short is also prominently featured in the competing Amazon documentary 'John Candy: I Like Me' about his 'SCTV' co-star, and credited Candy with his lifelong home-video habit — he traded his VHS for Betamax in 1981 to swap tapes with Candy.
- Short said no future seasons of 'Match Game' are planned but 'never say never,' and confirmed that next season's 'Only Murders in the Building' will move to London with a new batch of A-list guest stars.
Why it matters: Short's triple-category nomination is a rarity in Emmy history, and the documentary's three noms came after he agreed to its release just weeks after his daughter's death — making its reception a referendum on how audiences engage with grief told through humor. The competing 'John Candy' doc, in which Short also appears heavily, splits the documentary or nonfiction special category.
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