Steve Martin

Stephen Glenn Martin is an American comedian, actor, writer, producer, and musician known for his work in comedy films, television, and recording. Throughout his career, he has achieved widespread recognition, earning accolades including five Grammy Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and nominations for eight Golden Globe Awards and two Tony Awards. He has also received major honors such as the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, the Kennedy Center Honors, an Honorary Academy Award, and an AFI Life Achievement Award.

Martin was born on August 14, 1945, in Waco, Texas, to Mary Lee and Glenn Vernon Martin, a real estate salesman and aspiring actor. Raised with his older sister in Inglewood and Garden Grove, California, he attended Garden Grove High School. As a youth, Martin worked at Disneyland selling guidebooks and demonstrating magic, juggling, and balloon animals at magic shops. He later studied drama, poetry, and philosophy at Santa Ana College and California State University, Long Beach, before transferring to UCLA to study theater and eventually dropping out to pursue performing full-time.

Martin first gained public attention as a writer for television programs, winning an Emmy Award in 1969 for his writing on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. During the 1970s, he became a prominent stand-up comedian, gaining fame for his offbeat, absurdist comedy routines performed on national tours in packed arenas. He released platinum-selling comedy albums, including Let's Get Small in 1977 and A Wild and Crazy Guy in 1978, both of which won Grammy Awards for Best Comedy Recording. Known for wearing a distinctive white suit and popularizing air quotes on Saturday Night Live, Martin stopped performing stand-up in 1981 to focus on movies.

Transitioning into feature films, Martin starred in a series of popular comedies starting in the late 1970s and 1980s, including The Jerk, Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid, The Man with Two Brains, All of Me, ¡Three Amigos!, Planes, Trains and Automobiles, Roxanne, and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. His later film projects included L.A. Story, Bowfinger, and Looney Tunes: Back in Action. He also played family patriarch roles in movies such as Parenthood, the Father of the Bride films, Bringing Down the House, and the Cheaper by the Dozen series.

In addition to acting and comedy, Martin has maintained a long career as a musician and writer. A banjo player since an early age, he incorporated music into his stand-up acts and has released multiple music albums while performing with bluegrass acts, winning three music Grammy Awards. His writing endeavors extend to Broadway, where he authored the books for the musical Bright Star, for which he also co-wrote the music, and the comedy play Meteor Shower.

In recent years, Martin made a return to live comedy, touring nationally with fellow comedian Martin Short starting in 2015. Their work yielded the 2018 Netflix special An Evening You Will Forget for the Rest of Your Life. In 2021, Martin co-created and starred in the Hulu comedy series Only Murders in the Building alongside Short and Selena Gomez. His work on the show earned multiple nominations, including Primetime Emmy, Screen Actors Guild, and Golden Globe nominations.