Very few comedians possess a talent range that includes writing and performing live onstage, acting in television shows and movies, writing and producing them, and even playing the banjo professionally. Steve Martin, however, is an exception. He has been making the world laugh for more than 50 years, in movies, television, live stand-up tours, and even in plays and novelizations. He has starred in comedies about romance like The Jerk (1979) and Roxanne (1987), though he’s also made several films about families where he portrays the father like Touchstone’s remake of Father of the Bride (1991) and Fox’s Cheaper by the Dozen (2003). Did you also know he’s some very fascinating Disney connections?
Steve Martin was born on August 14th, 1945 in Waco, Texas, though he was raised in Inglewood, California. His father, Glen Vernon Martin, was a real estate salesman and an aspiring actor, and Steve Martin has said that he first became interested in performing when he saw his father work as an extra serving drinks onstage at the Call Board Theatre on Melrose Place in Los Angeles. Martin attended Garden Grove High School where he was a cheerleader, but while his high school was on summer break, he landed his very first job, at Disneyland, selling guidebooks and working at the Main Street Magic Shop where he became the master of several magic tricks. While working for Disneyland, he made his first film appearance, appearing in the home movie Disneyland Dream, and it was also around this time he became interested in performing comedy. There he met Wally Boag, the star performer of Disney’s Golden Horseshoe Revue, who became Martin’s comedy mentor.
After graduating High School, Martin attended Santa Ana College where he studied drama and poetry. He briefly considered becoming a college professor instead of a comedian, which led to him studying philosophy at California State University, Long Beach. He later decided to major in theater at UCLA and it was there that he began performing stand-up at local night clubs. When was 21 years old, he decided to quit college and devoted himself to performing stand-up comedy. He landed his first official job as a writer on the The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour (1967-1969) and the job won him an Emmy Award. Besides that show, he wrote for The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour (1969-1972) and The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour and The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour (1971-1974). Around this time, he appeared as the opening act for groups like The Carpenters and The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, John McEuen, who was a member of the latter, taught Martin how to play the banjo, which later became the trademark of Martin’s stand-up career.
In 1972, Steve Martin made his very first theatrical film appearance in Another Nice Mess (1972). He received another Emmy Nomination for writing material for the show Van Dyke and Company, and made his first appearance on Saturday Night Live in 1976. His career really began to skyrocket in the following years, when he released comedy albums that went platinum, including Let’s Get Small in 1977 which featured the track “Excuse Me,” which became national catch phrase and A Wild and Crazy Guy (1978) which reached #2 spot on the U.S. sales chart and sold over a million copies. This album featured the song “King Tut,” which was also released as a single and reached #17 on the U.S. charts that year. He guest-starred on The Muppet Show in 1977 and made a cameo in The Muppet Movie, released in 1979. ’79 was also the year Steve Martin published his first book, Cruel Shoes, appeared as himself in the “rockumentary” The Kids Are Alright, and starred in and wrote The Jerk, a film that was directed by Carl Reiner and was a success.
The success of “Jerk,” led to Martin collaborating with Carl Reiner on three other movies: Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid (1982) and The Man With Two Brains (1983), both of which Martin wrote with Reiner and Reiner also directed. Reiner directed Martin again in All of Me (1984). In 1986, he teamed up with Chevy Chase and Martin Short in Three Amigos! and he made the movie-musical version of Little Shop of Horrors in ’86 as well, starring opposite Rick Moranis, John Candy, and Ellen Greene. Steve Martin became great friends with several of his co-stars in both these films, particularly with Short and Candy, and he collaborated with them in later films. In 1987, he starred in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles opposite Candy and the film was written, produced, and directed by John Hughes. Both Martin and Candy later went on to say that “Planes, Trains, and Automobiles,” was their favorite film of all the films they made. Martin also wrote, executive produced, and starred in Roxanne in ’87, a romantic comedy that modernized the story of Cyrano de Bergerac a play written by Edmond Rostand in 1897.
In 1988, Steve Martin starred opposite Sir Michael Caine in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, a film that was directed by former “Muppet” performer Frank Oz. Although his character was married with children “Planes, Trains, and Automobiles,” the first film he made that truly explored the relationship of parents and children happened the following year in Parenthood (1989). This movie reunited him with Rick Moranis and also starred Mary Steenburgen, Jason Robards, and Dianne Wiest. He made Touchstone’s remake of Father of the Bride two years later starring opposite Diane Keaton and Martin Short. (The film also featured a cameo by Eugene Levy.) In 1993, Steve Martin became a playwright for the first time when he wrote a play called Picasso at the Lapin Agile, which opened as an Off-Broadway production in New York in 1995. In ’95, Martin again reunited with Keaton, Short, and Levy in Father of the Bride part 2. Short and Martin also lent their voices to Dreamworks Animation’s The Prince of Egypt (1998) and in 1999 Martin wrote the film Bowfinger starring Eddie Murphy and appeared as one of the introductory hosts for one of the segments in Disney’s Fantasia 2000.
Steve Martin opened the 2000s writing the novella Shopgirl in 2000. He later starred in and wrote the screenplay for the film version of the novella in 2005. Prior to that, in 2003, he wrote a novel called The Pleasure of My Company and played the father of a dozen children in Fox’s remake of Cheaper By the Dozen starring alongside Bonnie Hunt as his wife. He and Hunt re-teamed with their kids in Cheaper By the Dozen 2 which was also released in 2005. He was only too happy to do so when Disney asked him to co-host with Donald Duck the Disneyland attraction Disneyland: The First 50 Magical Years when Disneyland turned 50 in ’05. He starred in MGM’s/Columbia’s remake of The Pink Panther in 2006, which spawned a sequel in 2009. He married former New Yorker magazine writer Anne Stringfield in 2007, and he became a father for the very first time in his real life, at the age of 67, when his wife gave birth to a daughter in 2012. In late 2016, he returned to stand-up comedy nationally with Martin Short in a production called Steve Martin and Martin Short: An Evening You Will Forget for the Rest of Your Life, which was adapted for Netfilx in 2018.
Steve Martin is undoubtedly one of the most hilarious guys in comedy. He’s written it, he he’s performed it, he’s produced it, and he’s even written songs, books, and plays about it. He’s an extraordinary multi-talent, period! And whether he plays the romantic male lead or the crazy but tender-hearted father in a movie, the hilarity never ceases.
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