Steve Martin

Steve Martin Bio

Stephen Glenn Martin, known professionally as Steve Martin, is an American comedian, actor, writer, producer, and musician whose career has spanned stand-up comedy, film, television, music, and theater. He first gained national recognition as a writer on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, winning a Primetime Emmy Award in 1969, and went on to become one of the most popular stand-up comedians of the 1970s. Martin has earned five Grammy Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and an Academy Honorary Award, along with nominations for eight Golden Globe Awards and two Tony Awards. He received the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 2005, the Kennedy Center Honors in 2007, the Honorary Academy Award in 2013, and an AFI Life Achievement Award in 2015. In 2004, Comedy Central ranked him sixth on its list of the 100 greatest stand-up comics.

Early Life and Background

Stephen Glenn Martin was born on August 14, 1945, in Waco, Texas, to Mary Lee (née Stewart) and Glenn Vernon Martin, a real estate salesman and aspiring actor. He has an older sister, Melinda, and the family is of English, Scottish, Welsh, Scots-Irish, German, and French descent. Raised in a Baptist household, Martin grew up first in Inglewood, California, and later in Garden Grove in Orange County. He was a cheerleader at Garden Grove High School and has described his father as stern and emotionally reserved, although proud of his son. One of his earliest memories was seeing his father appear as an extra serving drinks onstage at the Callboard Theater on Melrose Place in West Hollywood.

Martin’s first job was at the newly opened Disneyland, where he sold guidebooks on weekends and during summer breaks from 1955 to 1958. He spent much of his free time at the Main Street Magic shop, where he watched tricks being demonstrated and began learning the craft himself. By 1960, he had mastered several illusions and took a paying job at the Magic shop in Fantasyland, where he developed skills in magic, juggling, and creating balloon animals under the mentorship of performer Wally Boag. During this period, he was captured in the background of a home movie that became the short film Disneyland Dream, marking his first film appearance.

After high school, Martin attended Santa Ana College, taking classes in drama and English poetry while performing in comedies and other productions at the Bird Cage Theatre. He later joined a comedy troupe at Knott’s Berry Farm, where he met aspiring actress Stormie Omartian, whose influence led him to enroll at California State University, Long Beach, with a major in philosophy. Inspired by his philosophy studies, Martin began exploring non-sequiturs and the structure of jokes, an approach that would shape his future comedy. In 1967, he transferred to UCLA, switched his major to theater, and soon dropped out of college to pursue performing full-time.

Path to Acting

Martin’s professional breakthrough came in 1967 when his former girlfriend Nina Goldblatt, a dancer on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, helped him land a writing job on the show. Head writer Mason Williams initially paid Martin out of his own pocket, and the writing team won an Emmy Award in 1969. He continued writing for television on The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour and The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour, and made his first national television appearance on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour in 1968. These early writing credits established Martin as a sharp comedic voice behind the scenes.

By the early 1970s, Martin had transitioned to performing stand-up comedy, appearing regularly on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, The Gong Show, HBO’s On Location, The Muppet Show, and NBC’s Saturday Night Live. His SNL appearances boosted the show’s audience by a million viewers, and he became one of its most popular hosts, eventually guest-hosting sixteen times and appearing on twenty-seven episodes. During this period he popularized the air quotes gesture and developed his trademark three-piece white suit, which he adopted because he wanted to remain visible to audiences in the large stadiums his tours were filling. He opened for groups such as The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, The Carpenters, and Toto, and continued writing for television, earning an Emmy nomination for Van Dyke and Company in 1976.

Steve Martin Career

Early Career (1966–1978)

Martin launched his stand-up career in the late 1960s, releasing his first major comedy album, Let’s Get Small, in 1977. The track “Excuse Me” from that album helped establish a national catch phrase. His follow-up album, A Wild and Crazy Guy (1978), reached the No. 2 spot on the U.S. sales chart and sold over a million copies. It featured the popular Festrunk Brothers sketches with Dan Aykroyd and the hit single “King Tut,” which reached No. 17 on the U.S. charts and sold over a million copies. Both albums won Grammy Awards for Best Comedy Recording in 1977 and 1978, respectively.

During this same period, Martin took his first steps into film, appearing in the short The Absent-Minded Waiter (1977), which he wrote and starred in alongside Buck Henry and Teri Garr. The seven-minute film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Short Film, Live Action. He also appeared in the musical Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, singing “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer.” By the end of the 1970s, his stand-up tours regularly sold out arenas filled with tens of thousands of fans, even though he privately considered film his real goal.

Breakthrough (1979–1989)

Martin starred in the comedy film The Jerk in 1979, directed by Carl Reiner and co-written by Martin, Michael Elias, and Carl Gottlieb. The film was a huge success, grossing over $100 million on a budget of about $4 million. Following The Jerk, Martin appeared in three more Reiner-directed comedies: Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid (1982), The Man with Two Brains (1983), and All of Me (1984), which was his most critically acclaimed performance up to that point. He also took a dramatic turn with Pennies from Heaven (1981), a serious musical film that was a financial failure but demonstrated his desire to avoid typecasting.

In 1986, Martin joined fellow Saturday Night Live veterans Martin Short and Chevy Chase in ¡Three Amigos!, directed by John Landis. The same year, he played the sadistic dentist Orin Scrivello in the film version of Little Shop of Horrors, his first pairing with Rick Moranis. In 1987, he co-starred with John Candy in John Hughes’ Planes, Trains and Automobiles and wrote and starred in Roxanne, a modern retelling of Cyrano de Bergerac that earned him a Writers Guild of America Award and proved he was more than a stand-up comedian. He then starred in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988) with Michael Caine and appeared in Ron Howard’s Parenthood (1989) with Rick Moranis.

Notable Works and Milestones

Martin starred in and wrote L.A. Story (1991), a romantic comedy co-starring his then-wife Victoria Tennant, and played the family patriarch in the Father of the Bride films (1991–1995). He later starred with Eddie Murphy in Bowfinger (1999), which he also wrote, and by 2003 ranked fourth on the box-office stars list after Bringing Down the House and Cheaper by the Dozen each grossed more than $130 million in U.S. theaters. He also headlined The Pink Panther (2006) and The Pink Panther 2 (2009), which together grossed over $230 million at the box office. In 2021, Martin co-created and starred in the Hulu comedy series Only Murders in the Building alongside Martin Short and Selena Gomez, earning three Primetime Emmy Award nominations, two Screen Actors Guild Award nominations, a Golden Globe nomination, and a 2021 Peabody Award nomination.

Steve Martin Award Nominations

Steve Martin has received numerous award nominations throughout his career, including ten Golden Globe Award nominations, two Tony Award nominations, and four Primetime Emmy Award nominations for his 2018 Netflix special An Evening You Will Forget for the Rest of Your Life. For Only Murders in the Building, Martin received three Primetime Emmy Award nominations, two Screen Actors Guild Award nominations, and a Golden Globe Award nomination, along with a 2021 Peabody Award nomination. His Broadway musical Bright Star earned five Tony Award nominations in 2016, including Best Musical, and Martin personally received Tony nominations for Best Book of a Musical and Best Original Score.

Steve Martin Awards Won

Martin has received major accolades across comedy, film, television, music, and theater. He won a Primetime Emmy Award in 1969 as part of the writing team for The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. His comedy albums Let’s Get Small (1977) and A Wild and Crazy Guy (1978) won Grammy Awards for Best Comedy Recording, and he has earned additional Grammy Awards for his bluegrass music and the Broadway cast album for Bright Star. In 2010, his album The Crow: New Songs for the 5-String Banjo won the Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album. Martin also received a Screen Actors Guild Award in 2006, the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 2005, the Kennedy Center Honors in 2007, an Academy Honorary Award in 2013, and an AFI Life Achievement Award in 2015.

Steve Martin Family

Steve Martin was born to Mary Lee (née Stewart) and Glenn Vernon Martin, a real estate salesman and aspiring actor. He has an older sister, Melinda. Martin has credited his early girlfriend Stormie Omartian, whom he met at Knott’s Berry Farm, with introducing him to philosophy and shaping the way he thinks about comedy. He is a father to a daughter born in December 2012 with his wife, Anne Stringfield.

Personal Life

On November 20, 1986, Martin married actress Victoria Tennant, with whom he had co-starred in All of Me and L.A. Story; the couple divorced in 1994. On July 28, 2007, he married writer and former New Yorker staff member Anne Stringfield at his Los Angeles home, with Bob Kerrey presiding over the ceremony and Lorne Michaels serving as best man. The nuptials came as a surprise to several guests who had been told they were attending a party. In December 2012, Stringfield gave birth to their daughter. Outside of show business, Martin has been an avid art collector since 1968, serving on the board of trustees of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art from 1984 to 2004, and has supported Indigenous Australian artists, organizing exhibitions and helping launch related arts funds.