Martin Short is remembering the family tragedies that “completely” changed his life.
The 76-year-old comedian recently appeared on the Netflix program with David Letterman and Paul Shaffer, where he reflected on losing his brother, mother and father.
As David explained after watching Martin’s Netflix documentary film, Marty, life is short, “One thing that impressed me was your childhood.”
David told Martin, “You were from a fun-loving Irish Catholic family and then suddenly your brother died in a car accident. And then your mother got cancer. And then your father died. It’s an incredible loss to happen very quickly.”
“Yeah, I was about 20,” Martin replied. “My older brother David died first. He was the star of the family. Then at his funeral my mother was diagnosed with cancer and died three years later. My father died the year after that.”
“So there definitely came a period when life changed completely,” he added Only murders in the building actor.
Martin lost his brother when he was just 12 years old, while his mother and father died before he turned 21.
In a recent interview People magazine, the father of the Bride The actor shared how he dealt with the tragedy experienced by his family.
“There’s no period of my life I don’t like to think about or go back to,” he told the outlet. “It sounds like a tragic family, but it’s really not.”
He continued, “My mother had cancer and she was ill from the time I was 13 and then recovered. She was a wonderful person; both of my parents were. So I never looked at it as if it was a tragedy – that I didn’t have them all my life. You learn some sense of priorities. Our whole family took the approach that if you have wonderful moments, don’t second-guess them, just enjoy them.”
