Martin Sheen

Ramón Antonio Gerardo Estévez, known professionally as Martin Sheen, is an American actor whose career spans more than six decades across film, television, and theatre. His accolades include three Emmy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, and four Actor Awards. In 1989, he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 2025, The Independent ranked him as the greatest actor never to have been nominated for an Academy Award.

Sheen was born in Dayton, Ohio, on August 3, 1940, to a Spanish father and an Irish mother, growing up as the seventh of ten children. At birth, his left arm was injured by forceps, resulting in Erb's palsy. As a child, he also contracted polio and remained bedridden for a year before recovering through Sister Kenny's treatment method. After his mother died when he was ten years old, his family remained together with support from a local Catholic church. Raised Catholic, he attended Chaminade High School and organized a strike of golf caddies at age fourteen.

Despite his father's opposition to an acting career, Sheen moved to New York City in his early twenties and spent two years with the Living Theatre company. He adopted his stage name from CBS casting director Robert Dale Martin and Catholic archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, though he never officially changed his legal name. He gained early recognition on Broadway in the 1964 play The Subject Was Roses, receiving a Tony Award nomination, and later starred in its 1968 film adaptation, earning a Golden Globe Award nomination.

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Sheen appeared in numerous television series and television movies. He earned significant acclaim for his starring roles in the crime drama Badlands (1973) and Francis Ford Coppola's Vietnam War drama Apocalypse Now (1979), the latter earning him a nomination for the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role. His notable television roles during this period included portrayals of real-life figures, such as Private Eddie Slovik in The Execution of Private Slovik (1974), Robert F. Kennedy in The Missiles of October (1974), John Dean in Blind Ambition (1979), and John F. Kennedy in Kennedy (1983).

Sheen achieved widespread television acclaim playing President Josiah "Jed" Bartlet in NBC's drama series The West Wing from 1999 to 2006, winning a Golden Globe Award and receiving six Primetime Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series. He previously won a Primetime Emmy Award for a guest role on Murphy Brown in 1994. Later in his career, he starred as Robert Hanson in the Netflix series Grace and Frankie from 2015 to 2022.

His extensive feature film work includes roles in Catch-22 (1970), Gandhi (1982), The Dead Zone (1983), Wall Street (1987), Gettysburg (1993), The American President (1995), Catch Me If You Can (2002), The Departed (2006), Bobby (2006), The Way (2010), The Amazing Spider-Man (2012), and Judas and the Black Messiah (2021). Sheen also directed and starred in the 1990 film Cadence alongside two of his sons.

In addition to acting, Sheen has directed, produced, and narrated documentary projects, voiced characters in video games and animated films, and co-founded Estevez Sheen Productions. He is the father of four children, all of whom are actors. Throughout his life, Sheen has been involved in social justice work and active in liberal politics.