of English and Irish descent. She encouraged his early creative endeavours. His eldest brother, David, was killed in a car accident in Montréal in 1962 when Short was 12. His mother died of cancer in 1968, his father two years later of complications from a stroke. Short attended Westdale Secondary School and graduated from McMaster University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Social Work in 1971. Career Early career When Short graduated from McMaster University, he intended to pursue a career in social work; however, he became interested in acting once he was cast in a Toronto production of Godspell that same year. Among other members of that production's cast were Victor Garber, Gilda Radner, Eugene Levy, Dave Thomas, and Andrea Martin; Paul Shaffer was the musical director. Short stated in the documentary Love, Gilda that he and Gilda Radner dated each other on and off during that time. He was subsequently cast in several television shows and plays, including the drama Fortune and Men's Eyes (1972). He worked solely in Canada through 1979. In 1979, Short starred in the US sitcom The Associates about a group of young novice lawyers working at a Wall Street law firm. In 1980, he joined the cast of I'm a Big Girl Now, a sitcom starring Diana Canova and Danny Thomas. Canova was offered the sitcom because of her success playing Corinne Tate Flotsky on ABC's Soap and left Soap shortly before Short's newlywed wife Nancy Dolman joined it. Second City Television Short was encouraged to pursue comedy by McMaster classmates Eugene Levy and Dave Thomas, whom he joined in the improvisation group The Second City in Toronto, Ontario, in 1977. He came to public notice when the group produced a show for television, Second City Television (SCTV), which ran for several years in Canada, then the United States. Short appeared on SCTV in 1982–83. At SCTV, Short developed several characters before moving on to Saturday Night Live for the 1984–85 season: Aged songwriter Irving Cohen, commonly thought to be loosely based on American composers Irving Caesar and/or Irving Berlin and perhaps Canadian songwriter Leonard Cohen, but actually (according to Short in his autobiography) inspired by Sophie Tucker Defense attorney Nathan Thurm Albino Vegas singer, Jackie Rogers Jr. and his father, Jackie Rogers Sr., the latter of which was mauled to death by a mountain lion during a comeback special that took