In the early ‘80s, a young Martin Short got the thrill of a lifetime—temporarily, at least—when he found himself seated behind I Love Lucy star Lucille Ball on a flight from L.A. to New York. At the time, Short was performing on SCTV and wasn’t as recognizable as he would later be. He was in awe of Ball and her “vivid red” hair initially, telling Conan O’Brien in a 2008 interview, “They don’t make red like that anymore.” Short’s excitement about being in close proximity to a comedy legend was short-lived, however, because before long Ball would be making a baffling accusation about Short that he still has a hard time wrapping his head around.
Roughly 20 minutes into the flight, Ball turned around and got right up in Short’s face. At first, he thought she recognized him, but she burst that bubble pretty quickly when she said, “Excuse me, you kicked the back of my seat about three times. Would you stop doing that? Thanks.” As Short explained to O’Brien, they were in first class, and there was a ton of room between their seats, so the idea of him kicking the back of hers was ridiculous.
Fifteen minutes later, Ball was at it again. “Look, I asked you nicely before, I’m gonna ask you again, stop kicking the back of my seat,” she barked at Short, who maintained that he did nothing to warrant such a reaction. Not too long after that, the flight attendant went up to Short and told him that she’d been asked by someone on the plane to tell him and his friend to keep it down. At that point, Short loudly told the woman, “I know where that’s coming from. It’s coming from the couple in front, and they have been obnoxious since the start of this flight.”
Ball then jumped out of her seat and insisted that Short had kicked the back of her “[goddamn] chair” multiple times. Waving his finger in her face, Short told Ball that she was “sick” and “out of control.” This prompted the man Ball was with—who may or may not have been her husband, comedian Gary Morton—to confront Short, asking him, “What are you pointing at, little boy?” Ball’s unidentified companion tried to grab at Short’s finger a couple of times before the stewardess stepped in and convinced Short to move elsewhere for a complimentary bottle of wine, which wasn’t very complimentary considering that liquor was already free in first class.
While recounting the story to John Candy and Bill Murray at dinner later that night, Candy said to Short, “Let’s go and find her. We’ll go to her hotel and find her.” Needless to say, they didn’t actually do that. “The worst I would do is find out where she was staying and just phone and hang up a lot,” Short joked.
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