Biography
Born Richard Ian Porterfield Short in South Shields, England on October 8, 1975, he performed with a youth theater group as a teenager, but divided his interests between film and stage work as a student at Brooklands College. The latter eventually became his primary goal, and Short left school for work in regional productions. In 1996, he was cast as singer Johnny Casino in the United Kingdom touring production of "Grease," and remained with the show through its iterations at London's West End and other theaters before its close in 1999. From there, he joined the London Shakespeare Workshops, which paired professional actors with established performers in classical dramas; the exposure led to work in touring productions of MacBeth, among other works, as well as modern fare like "The Real Monty." In 2006, Short made his first appearance in an American stage production by serving as understudy opposite Alec Baldwin in "Entertaining Mr. Sloane," and earned his first screen credit in Tom DiCillo's indie comedy "Delirious" that same year. Roles on Stateside television series like "Law & Order: Criminal Intent" (NBC, 2001-2011) and "Bored to Death" (HBO, 2009-2011) and features, including a turn as doomed but heroic FBI Agent Samuel Cowley, who died during a fatal shootout with "Baby Face" Nelson (Stephen Graham) in Michael Mann's "Public Enemies" (2009), soon followed. Theater also remained a showcase, most notably the 2011 Broadway run of "Jerusalem" with Mark Rylance, but Short was soon dividing his time between features and television. These included a recurring role as the supernatural Harlan Moore on "666 Park Avenue" (ABC, 2013), as Marvel Comics' first openly gay character, Agent Pinky Pinkerton, on "Agent Carter" and as a seductive photographer on HBO's short-lived "Vinyl" (2016). The following year, he joined the cast of the dark comedy "Mary Kills People" for the Canadian network Global. The series, which starred actress Caroline Dhavernas as a emergency room doctor who secretly operated an end-of-life business; Short played her conflicted business partner, Des.
