It’s lunchtime at New York’s Peninsula Hotel and comedians Steve Martin and Martin Short are musing on the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s recent exit from the Royal Family.
‘I completely get them wanting to get out of a situation where there’s no choice about the things you’re doing,’ says Steve Martin.
‘Retirement is not good for the soul,’ Steve Martin says. ‘I’m never going to retire.’ He turns to Martin Short: ‘I’ll wheel you around in a wheelchair and take you places’
Short looks at him. ‘Well, I don’t quite get it,’ he says. ‘There are worse situations to be in. You live in a house that you’ve been given over £2 million just to renovate… and that’s the struggle you’re going through?’ He grins. ‘There are people in worse shape than they are. Anyway, now that Harry’s not in England, someone’s got to come over, so that’s what Steve and I are doing.’
For just as the Sussex duo have headed to North America to begin a new life, Martin and Short are crossing the Atlantic in the opposite direction for The Funniest Show In Town At The Moment – a series of live dates in the UK and Ireland. And they promise their show – a blend of comedy, incessant ribbing and banjo-playing – will ‘never let you down’.
‘A joke is only allowed in the show if it’s a 9/10 or a 10/10,’ says Short.
‘And because Marty’s with me, we also allow a 7/10 joke too,’ adds Martin.
The comics became firm friends after co-starring alongside Chevy Chase in the 1986 comedy Three Amigos, and while their easy banter translates well on stage, getting a straight answer from either of them proves virtually impossible.
Do they still get nervous performing?
‘I was much more nervous back then because I was going out alone. But now I go out with stupid over here,’ smiles Steve Martin, ‘so it’s a lot easier.’
‘Back then’ the two Martins enjoyed huge successes both on stage and screen – Short with his stints on the US show Saturday Night Live and in films such as Innerspace; and Steve Martin in Parenthood, The Pink Panther and Father Of The Bride. Martin’s absurdist stand-up was legendary – his comedy albums went platinum, he played to packed stadiums and was, as he admits in his autobiography Born Standing Up, ‘the biggest concert comedian in showbusiness, ever’. ‘He was like a rock star,’ says Short.
Fame, Martin admits, was a curious phenomenon. ‘I remember when I was first starting to become known, my agent said “I’m going to get a limo for tonight’s gig” and I said, “I don’t need a limo to go to the gig. That’s ridiculous.” The limo comes, takes me to the gig and then the next night, I say, “Where’s the limo!” ’
At the height of his stardom in 1981, Steve Martin quit stand-up as he was burnt out and ‘essentially depressed’. He then moved to the big screen, where he enjoyed a string of hits including Roxanne, and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels with Michael Caine. While the movie roles may have slowed down in recent years (‘I lost interest in the movies at exactly the point the movies lost interest in me’), with a personal worth estimated at $130 million, he doesn’t seem unduly bothered.
‘You know, I started to change and the movies started to change and there was no real creative need to do films. Also, it takes three months to make a movie and they always make them somewhere inexpensive like Arizona. I can’t leave my family for three months. It’s just out of the question.’
Martin, 74, and his wife Anne Stringfield, 48, have a seven-year-old daughter together – Martin having become a father for the first time at the age of 67. He tries to arrange his tours so that he’s never away from home for more than three nights, and while fiercely protective of his personal life – he hasn’t even revealed his daughter’s name publicly – he nonetheless says that becoming a father ‘is the greatest thing I’ve ever done’.
Does having a child much later in life make him think about his mortality? ‘Well, I’ve been thinking about death since I was 20!’ he says. ‘But I take care of myself. I exercise. I’ve been a pescatarian for 40 years – I haven’t eaten meat in that time. I think people go through phases of thinking about death, but of course I think about it more [since having a daughter].’
‘I don’t think about it at all, strangely enough,’ says Short. ‘I know it’s coming and I’m 69 years of age, so it’s definitely closer than when I was 39.’
Certainly if anyone had cause to ponder his own mortality, it’s Canadian-born Short. His formative years were permeated with loss. When he was 12, his older brother, David, died in a car accident; at 17, he lost his mother to cancer and at 19, his father died from a stroke. He suffered further anguish in 2010 when his wife, comic actress Nancy Dolman, died of ovarian cancer aged 58. The couple had three children (all now in their 30s) and a relationship that had lasted 38 years. How did they manage it?
‘Well, they were a great couple,’ says Martin, interjecting on his buddy’s behalf. ‘Tom Hanks used to say to her “Don’t you get tired of laughing at his jokes?” and she’d say, “No, I thought it was funny.” No matter if it was the 50th iteration of that joke, she would find it funny every time. And the rest of us would just stare at him.’
The year following Nancy’s death, Short and Martin were invited to interview one another in Chicago and had such a grand time, they did it again and again, honing their performance until it evolved into the Emmy-nominated 2018 Netflix special An Evening You Will Forget For The Rest Of Your Life.
Working steadily, Short admits, helped him after the loss of his wife, ‘but then I find that working is good anyway’.
Martin and Short’s upcoming tour will be the first time the pair have performed together in the UK, although Short already possesses a rather unexpected link to Britain – his cousin is the former Labour MP Clare Short
‘Retirement is not good for the soul,’ Steve Martin agrees. ‘I’m never going to retire.’ He turns to Short: ‘I’ll wheel you around in a wheelchair and take you places.’
Their upcoming tour will be the first time the pair have performed together in the UK, although Short already possesses a rather unexpected link to Britain – his cousin is the former Labour MP Clare Short (‘I remember when I met Elton John, the first thing he said to me was, “Are you really her cousin?”’).
Martin, it turns out, is also a fan of the Brits, in particular the work of Monty Python and Russell Brand. ‘I really admired Russell as I’d read his first book and loved his frankness and I wanted to meet him,’ he says. ‘So one night, I’m at the Oscars party. It’s about 1am and I say to my wife “It’s getting late, let’s go”, and just as we’re walking out, in he comes. I said “Aw, I’m going out just as you’re coming in” and he replied, “It’s a metaphor.”’
Martin, who knows a little something about humour himself, nods appreciatively. ‘It was the fastest comeback I’ve ever heard.’
‘The Funniest Show In Town’ is at the SSE Hydro, Glasgow, tomorrow and at the Royal Albert Hall from March 14-15, myticket.co.uk