MARTIN SHORT - SHORT WARY OF CO-STARS' HYGIENE AFTER SMELLY SCENES

Funnyman MARTIN SHORT is getting serious about the dental hygiene of his co-stars as he prepares for his new Broadway, New York show FAME BECOMES ME - after working with one actress whose breath stank. The THREE AMIGOS star refuses to name names but can't forget the stench of a former co-star, who left him holding his breath during close dialogue scenes. He recalls, "I worked with an actress whose breath was like a possum blew up... it was like the breath of a cougar and it was really really bad. She was ill or something. "I would say, (dialogue)'Well how do you think that makes me feel?' and I'd breathe in and then she'd do her line (and then I'd breath out). "I thought, 'This can't go on,' so I spoke to the stage manager and he said, 'I'm gonna talk to her,' and I said, 'No, don't talk to her because she'll know it came from me.' He said, 'I'll do it subtly.' "So the next night, she was doing a breath freshener and now it just smelled like peppermint in a morgue. It was coming from deep within. Just because it passed a little bit of peppermint didn't make it lovely. It smelled like JOHN GOODMAN's couch."