Martin Short Opens Up About His Breakup With Gilda Radner
Martin Short recently took a walk down memory lane in regards to his love life on Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson‘s podcast Where Everybody Knows Your Name. Short met his late wife, Nancy Dolman, when they were in their early 20s and he was dating Gilda Radner. Short and Radner appeared in a musical called Godspell in 1972 and Dolman was Radner’s understudy. He recalls thinking Dolman was very beautiful but he was with Radner at the time so he didn’t pursue it, admitting that he also thought she was out of his league.
He then revealed that he and Radner were always breaking up and making up, but when he felt it was over for good, he reached out to Dolman. They made plans to play tennis and began falling for each other, to the shock of Radner who apparently told him “we’re supposed to get back together.”
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Short also admitted an intimate detail of his relationship with Dolman, sharing with Danson and Harrelson that when they were ready to be together physically for the first time, they checked into a hotel. He said, “I was wearing cutoff jeans and a T-shirt, and Nancy was wearing cutoff jeans and like a halter top. And I said, ‘My wife and I would like room, please.’ And the guy behind the desk burst out laughing. He just burst out laughing.”
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Short and Dolman wed in 1980 and had three children together. Sadly, she passed away in 2010 after a battle with ovarian cancer at just 58 years old. Radner also died of ovarian cancer in 1989 at the age of 42.
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Recently, Short has been in the news with rumors that he is dating his Only Murders in the Building costar Meryl Streep but both stars have denied it, claiming they are just really good friends.
Hollywoods Golden Couples
February 2022
Gaze back at the classic romances of old Hollywood, both onscreen and off.
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