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Martin Short recalls in new doc about his life, Marty, Life Is Short<\/em>, that he once avoided a dinner with Bill Murray, because he couldn’t deal with the Saturday Night Live <\/em>star’s success.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n The moment was a turning point for Short, who quickly decided to do improv comedy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n Short himself joined the SNL<\/em> cast for one season in 1984.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n Martin Short<\/a> is a big star now, but he almost quit comedy altogether one night early in his career because of a certain Saturday Night Live<\/em><\/a> alum.<\/p>\n The actor and his late wife, Nancy Dolman, were on their way to meet Bill Murray<\/a> and musician Paul Shaffer, who were both working on Saturday Night Live<\/em><\/a> at the time, for dinner, Short recalls in the new documentary, Marty, Life Is Short<\/em>, which premieres on Netflix on May 12. Short lived in Los Angeles at the time, and the men were visiting from New York, where Murray was already a “big hit” on Lorne Michaels’ sketch comedy show.<\/p>\n “Nancy and I were walking there,” Short remembers, “and I just was overwhelmed with, ‘I can’t. I can’t do it. I can’t do it. I can’t.’ I’m out of work now. Hadn’t worked in a couple months. Had no prospects and didn’t really know where I was going. And I said, ‘I can’t go and pretend to be happy for Bill, because I don’t know what I’m doing. I need to sit down.'”<\/p>\n Short called the moment “breakdown corner.”<\/p>\n At the time, Short had a limited list of credits, with the biggest project he’d worked on being the 1972 Toronto production of Godspell<\/em>, which featured several other future comedy stars, including Gilda Radner, Eugene Levy, and Andrea Martin.<\/p>\n Short didn’t know it that night in L.A., but he was hours away from an epiphany.<\/p>\n “We sat there for about 10 minutes and didn’t speak,” Short says. “Finally, Nancy said, ‘How long are we going to stay here?\u2019 I said, \u2018I don’t know.\u2019”<\/p>\n He continued, “So we went back to the apartment, and I woke up in a funk. And then we saw War Babies, who were an improvisational group. It was so funny. It was fresh. It was inspiring. I felt inspired just witnessing it. It was like the lightbulbs went off. ‘Of course, this is what I should do.'”<\/p>\n The following morning, Short called the leader of the Second City improv group and said he wanted to join, which he did. There he worked with other future comedy superstars Levy, Martin, Catherine O’Hara, and John Candy.<\/p>\n Get your daily dose of entertainment news, celebrity updates, and what to watch with our <\/em><\/strong>EW Dispatch newsletter<\/em><\/strong><\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n