Steve Martin

Career

Early years

Martin was born in Waco, Texas to Glenn Vernon Martin, a real-estate salesman and aspiring actor and Mary Lee Stewart, a housewife.

As a teenager, Martin started out working at the Magic Shop at Disneyland, where he developed his talents for magic, juggling, playing the banjo and creating balloon animals.

Martin majored in philosophy at California State University at Long Beach, but dropped out.

Martin's girlfriend in 1967 was a dancer on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, who helped Martin land a writing job with the show by submitting his work to head writer Mason Williams. Martin also wrote for John Denver (a neighbor of his in Aspen, Colorado at one point), The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour, and The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour. He also appeared on these shows and several others, in various comedy skits.

Martin also performed his own material, sometimes as an opening act for groups such as The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and The Carpenters.

Fame

In the mid-1970s, Martin made frequent appearances as a stand-up comedian on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.

His next album, A Wild and Crazy Guy, was an even bigger success, reaching the #2 spot on the sales chart in the U.S. and featured another catch phrase (the album's title), this time based on a Saturday Night Live skit in which Martin and Dan Aykroyd played a couple of bumbling Czechoslovakian would-be playboys.

In his comedy albums, Martin's stand-up comedy was clearly self-referential and sometimes self-mocking.

Movie career

By the end of the 1970s, Steve Martin, as a wild and crazy comedian, had acquired the kind of following normally reserved for rock stars, with his tour appearances typically occurring at sold-out arenas filled with tens of thousands of screaming fans.

Martin's first film was a short, The Absent-Minded Waiter (1977). The seven-minute long film, also featuring Buck Henry and Teri Garr, was written by and starred Martin.

In 1979, Martin wrote and starred in his first full-length movie, The Jerk, directed by Carl Reiner.

Since then, Martin's film career could best be described as uneven.

But the success of The Jerk opened more doors for Martin. Stanley Kubrick met with him to discuss the possibility of Martin starring in a screwball comedy version of Traumnovelle (Kubrick later changed his approach to the material, the result of which was 1999's Eyes Wide Shut). Martin was executive producer for Domestic Life, a prime-time television series starring Martin Mull, and a late-night series called Twilight Theater.

Martin was in three more Reiner-directed comedies after The Jerk: Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid in 1982, The Man with Two Brains in 1983 and All of Me in 1984, which remains perhaps the most critically lauded performance of his career. In 1986, Martin joined fellow Saturday Night Live veterans Martin Short and Chevy Chase in ¡Three Amigos!, directed by John Landis, and written by Martin, Lorne Michaels, and Randy Newman. It was originally entitled The Three Caballeros and Martin was to be teamed with Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi.

In 1986, Martin was in the musical film version of the hit off-Broadway play Little Shop of Horrors (based on a famous B-movie), as a sadistic dentist, Orin Scrivello. The film also marked the first of three films teaming Martin with actor Rick Moranis.

In 1987, Martin joined comedian John Candy in the John Hughes movie, Planes, Trains & Automobiles. That same year, the Cyrano de Bergerac adaptation Roxanne, a film Martin co-wrote, won him a Writers Guild of America award and more importantly, the recognition from Hollywood and the public that he was more than a comedian.

Martin starred in the Ron Howard film, Parenthood, with Rick Moranis in 1989. In a serious role, Martin played a tightly wound Hollywood film producer trying to recover from a traumatic robbery that left him injured.

In David Mamet's 1997 thriller, The Spanish Prisoner, Martin played a darker role as a wealthy stranger who takes a suspicious interest in the work of a young businessman (Campbell Scott). In 1999, Martin and Goldie Hawn starred in a remake of the 1970 Neil Simon comedy, The Out-of-Towners.

In 2005, Martin wrote and starred in Shopgirl, based on his own novella. Martin's latest work was in the 2006 installment of The Pink Panther, starring as the bumbling Inspector Clouseau.

Other work

Throughout the 1990s, after Tina Brown took over The New Yorker, Martin wrote various pieces for the magazine.

In 1993, Martin wrote the play Picasso at the Lapin Agile, which had a successful run in several American cities. In 2002, Martin adapted the Carl Sternheim play The Underpants, which ran Off-Broadway at Classic Stage Company.

In 2005, Martin hosted a film along with Donald Duck, Disneyland: The First 50 Magical Years, which shows at Disneyland until the end of Disneyland's 50th anniversary celebration in September 2006. Martin was also honoured in 2005 with a Disney Legend award, acknowledging Martin's early career at Disneyland and connections with The Walt Disney Company throughout his career.

Martin has guest-hosted Saturday Night Live 14 times, more than any other person. Martin has also written two novellas, Shopgirl and The Pleasure of My Company.

In a 2005 poll to find The Comedian's Comedian, Martin was voted amongst the top 20 greatest comedy acts ever by fellow comedians and comedy insiders.

Art collection

Martin is an avid art collector, particularly modern American art, and a trustee of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

In 2005, The Huntington Library in San Marino, California announced that Martin had pledged US$1 million over five years for the museum's American art collection. Jessica Todd Smith, the museum's American art curator, said Martin became an "enthusiastic" supporter of The Huntington after he visited the museum in 2002 while filming a movie nearby. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1978) The Muppet Movie (1979) The Kids Are Alright (1979) (documentary) The Jerk (film) (1979) (also writer) Pennies from Heaven (1981) Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid (1982) (also writer) The Man with Two Brains (1983) (also writer) The Lonely Guy (1984) All of Me (1984) Movers & Bilko (1996) The Spanish Prisoner (1997) The Prince of Egypt (1998) (voice) The Out-of-Towners (1999) Bowfinger (1999) (also writer) The Venice Project (1999) (Cameo) Fantasia 2000 (1999) Thin Ice (2000) Joe Gould's Secret (2000) Novocaine (2001) Bringing Down the House (2003) Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003) Cheaper by the Dozen (2003) Jiminy Glick in Lalawood (2004) (Cameo) Shopgirl (2005) (also writer and producer) Cheaper by the Dozen 2 (2005) The Pink Panther (2006) (A reboot of the earlier series) Picasso at the Lapin Agile (2008) (also writer) The Pink Panther 2 (2008) (officially announced by MGM) Kneazles! (2008) (announced) Kung Fu Panda (2008) (pre-production)

Bibliography

Discography