For most of its brief length, I Must Say is a fairly good but standard exemplar of the celebrity memoir. The early struggle, the camaraderie of breaking into show business and finding your people, the name-droppy stories about show business parties, and some behind the scenes anecdotes from his films and TV shows, which in Short’s case obviously includes SCTV, Three Amigos, SNL, Father of the Bride, winning a Tony, etc. (I Must Say was published in 2014, long before the advent of Only Murders in the Building.)
But if you know anything about Martin Short’s life, it won’t surprise you to know that things take a turn near the end of the book, when his beloved wife Nancy develops ovarian cancer and eventually passes away from the disease in 2010. Short writes quite movingly about his marriage and his wife’s illness, in chapters that can be quite tough to listen to, especially after hours of stories about Eugene Levy and Steve Martin. You might have seen the infamous clip of Short’s appearance on Today with Kathie Lee Gifford, where she has obviously forgotten that Nancy had passed away and asks Short about their relationship as though she is still alive. Short, with frankly incredible generosity, just goes along with it, answering quite truthfully (and beautifully) that he is still very much in love with her. Short is still very generous to Gifford in the book, insisting that he wasn’t upset by the questions and totally understood how such a mistake could happen.
It’s a remarkable moment, and one that will stick with me longer than stories about Chevy Chase’s antics or the development of Ed Grimley.