Bio: Steve Martin was born on August 14, 1945 in Waco, Texas, USA as Stephen Glenn Martin to Mary Lee (n��e Stewart; 1913-2002) and Glenn Vernon Martin (1914-1997), a real estate salesman and aspiring actor. He was raised in Inglewood and Garden Grove in California. In 1960, he got a job at the Magic shop of Disney's Fantasyland, and while there he learned magic, juggling, and creating balloon animals. At Santa Ana College, he took classes in drama and English poetry. He also took part in comedies and other productions at the Bird Cage Theatre, and joined a comedy troupe at Knott's Berry Farm. He attended California State University as a philosophy major, but in 1967 transferred to UCLA as a theatre major.His writing career began on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour (1967), winning him an Emmy Award. Between 1967 and 1973, he also wrote for many other shows, including The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour (1969) and The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour (1971). He also appeared on talk shows and comedy shows in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In 1972, he first appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1962), doing stand-up several times each year, and even guest hosting a few years later. In 1976, he served for the first time as guest-host on Saturday Night Live (1975). By 2016, he has guest-hosted 15 times, which is one less than Alec Baldwin's record, and also appeared 12 other times on SNL.In 1977, he released his first comedy album, a platinum selling "Let's Get Small". He followed it with "A Wild and Crazy Guy" (1978), which sold more than a million copies. Both albums went on to win Grammys for Best Comedy Recording. This is when he performed in arenas in front of tens of thousands of people, and begun his movie career, which was always his goal. His first major role was in the short film, The Absent-Minded Waiter (1977), which he also wrote. His star value was established in The Jerk (1979), which was co-written by Martin, and directed by Carl Reiner. The film earned more than $100 million on a $4 million budget. He also starred in Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid (1982), The Man with Two Brains (1983), and All of Me (1984), all directed by Reiner. To avoid being typecast as a comedian, he wanted do more dramatic roles, starring in Pennies from Heaven (1981), a film remake of Dennis Potter's 1978 series. Unfortunately, it was a financial failure.He also starred in John Landis's Three Amigos! (1986), co-written by himself, opposite Martin Short and Chevy Chase. That year, he also appeared in the musical horror comedy, Little Shop of Horrors (1986) opposite Rick Moranis. Next year, he starred in Roxanne (1987), co-written by himself, and in John Hughes' Planes, Trains & Automobiles (1987), opposite John Candy. His other films include Parenthood (1989) and My Blue Heaven (1990), both opposite Moranis. In 1991, he wrote and starred in L.A. Story (1991), about a weatherman who searches meaning in his life and love in Los Angeles. It also starred his then-wife, Victoria Tennant. Same year, Father of the Bride (1991) was so successful that a 1995 sequel followed.During the 1990s, he continued to play more dramatic roles, in Grand Canyon (1991), playing a traumatized movie producer, in Leap of Faith (1992), playing a fake faith healer, in A Simple Twist of Fate (1994), playing a betrayed man adopting a baby, and in David Mamet's thriller The Spanish Prisoner (1997). Other, more comedic roles include in HouseSitter (1992) and The Out-of-Towners (1999), opposite Goldie Hawn, in Nora Ephron's Mixed Nuts (1994), and in Bowfinger (1999), written by himself and co-starring Eddie Murphy. After Bowfinger, he starred in Bringing Down the House (2003) and Cheaper by the Dozen (2003), both earning more than $130 million. He wrote and starred in Shopgirl (2005), and appeared in the sequel of Cheaper by the Dozen. After them, he appeared in The Pink Panther (2006) and The Pink Panther 2 (2009), which he both co-wrote, as Inspector Clouseau.He continues to do movies, more recently appearing in The Big Year (2011), Home (2015), and Love the Coopers (2015). Besides aforementioned, he has been an avid art collector since 1968, written plays, written for The New Yorker, written a well-received memoir (Born Standing Up), written a novel (An Object of Beauty; 2010), hosted the Academy Awards three times, released a Grammy award winning music album (The Crow: New Songs for the 5-String Banjo; 2009), and another album (Love Has Come For You; 2013) with Edie Brickell. Since 2007, he has been married to Anne Stringfield, with whom he has a daughter.
Tivia: His business card reads "This certifies that you have had a personal encounter with me, and that you found me warm, polite, intelligent, and funny.".He fell into depression for a couple of months when his good friend John Candy died.After inviting friends including Tom Hanks, Diane Keaton and Eugene Levy to a dinner party, he married his longtime girlfriend Anne Stringfield in a surprise ceremony at their Los Angeles home.He is an accomplished banjo player and appears playing the instrument in Earl Scruggs and Friends video for "Foggy Mountain Breakdown," for which he won a Grammy for Best Country Instrumental Performance. This makes him rare in that he has won Grammies for both comedy and music.He told Terry Gross on her National Public Radio program "Fresh Air" that he smoked a fair amount of marijuana in the late 1960s until one night when he had a panic attack at a showing of the Mel Brooks movie The Producers (1967). After that, he never smoked pot again, and he believes that the negative experience saved him from the harder drug abuse and addiction that plagued so many of his colleagues during the next few decades.He once had a job at Disneyland in the Magic Shop on Main Street, USA. He also worked for neighboring amusement park Knott's Berry Farm as a comedian in their "Birdcage Theatre". It was during these jobs that he honed his skills in live performance, such as improv comedy, banjo playing, juggling, and lassoing. It was at Knott's Berry Farm where he met his friend, Stormie Omartian.He is skilled with a rope or lasso and did his own rope work in Three Amigos! (1986). He also plays the harmonica.He says his favorite movie of his own is Planes, Trains & Automobiles (1987).2007: Best man during his wedding to Anne Stringfield was Lorne Michaels, creator of Saturday Night Live (1975).Although many critics were disdainful of his overtly silly act early in his career, its postmodern nature was admired by avant garde filmmakers David Lynch and Stanley Kubrick, both of whom approached Martin to appear in ultimately unproduced comedy films.He is a trustee of the Los Angeles Museum of Art, and collects the art of Georgia O'Keeffe, Richard Diebenkorn, Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, Cy Twombly, Helen Frankenthaler, Edward Hopper, David Hockney, Roy Lichtenstein, and Pablo Picasso.He is in the horn section of B.B. King's "In The Midnight Hour" music video.He learned to play the banjo by playing LPs at 16rpm speed. This approach enabled him to more accurately pick the individual notes due to the halved playback LP speed.He is a fan of Monty Python's Flying Circus (1969). This led to him becoming the host and narrator of the documentary Parrot Sketch Not Included: Twenty Years of Monty Python (1989).He was Warner Bros. second choice for the role of The Riddler in Batman Forever (1995) (after Robin Williams ). However he turned it down as with the death of his good friend John Candy and his divorce from Victoria Tennant he was too sad to make any movies.He is a member of Mensa, as are James Woods, Ben Rollins.He was on an episode of The Dating Game (1965) before he was famous in 1966. He won a date with an old friend named Marscha Walker, whom he had not seen in three years. He appeared on the show again the next year and won again. He wore the same shirt and jacket.His study of philosophy was a source of much of his material for his 1970s standup act.Even though during his stand up days he said he was a "wild and crazy guy", in real life he is actually quite shy and quiet.Contrary to popular belief, Martin was never a cast member on NBC's Saturday Night Live (1975). However, he holds the records for guest appearances (25) on the show (followed closely by Buck Henry), hosting (at 15 times, he sets the standard for the SNL "Five Timers Club"), and hosting in a single season (3). He is also the only person to have hosted a season premiere, a season finale, and a Christmas show. He was also scheduled to host for the ill-fated 1980-1981 season, but a writers strike prevented this.He became a father for the first time at age 67.At his insistence, the 1987-1988 season premiere of Saturday Night Live (1975) (hosted by Martin) went on, despite the fact that there hadn't been a dress rehearsal. There was a fire in a nearby studio and the cast and crew were evacuated from Rockefeller Center just before dress rehearsal was scheduled to begin.Dated Mary Tyler Moore.He studied philosophy at California State University at Long Beach, and for a while, considered becoming a philosophy professor instead of an actor-comedian. He periodically spoofed his philosophy studies in his 1970s stand-up act, such as comparing Philosophy with studying Geology: "If you're studying Geology, which is all facts, as soon as you get out of school you forget it all, but Philosophy you remember just enough to screw you up for the rest of your life.".When Martin lived in his Manhattan apartment, his next door neighbor was Mary Steenburgen.2007: Recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors. Other recipients that year were Leon Fleisher, Diana Ross, Martin Scorsese, and Brian Wilson.He played the banjo in his guest appearance on the The Muppet Show (1976).He appeared on the college circuit in the 1970s with fellow musical comedian Martin Mull as "The Steve Martin Mull Show".He lists British television (especially the comedies) as his biggest influence.He is the father, with Anne Springfield, of a daughter born in December 2012.He was romantically involved with, and at one point engaged to, Bernadette Peters, with whom he worked in several films in the 1970s and '80s.Stanley Kubrick liked his work in The Jerk (1979) and once considered having him play Bill Harford in Eyes Wide Shut (1999); the role that later went to Tom Cruise.He wore his Inspector Clouseau mustache during his 2007 wedding because he is reprising his role for the upcoming sequel to The Pink Panther (2006).He was chosen as #6 in Comedy Central's 100 Greatest Stand-Ups of All Time.He was considered for the role of "Willy Wonka" in the movie Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005).He co-wrote two songs with Martin Mull: "Men" appearing on the album "I'm Everyone That I Have Ever Loved" and "Westward Ho!" appearing on the album "Sex & Violins".He graduated from Garden Grove High School in 1963. He attended Rancho Alamitos High School in the beginning of his high school career, but then high school attendance areas were changed, and he had to start going to Garden Grove. He was also a cheerleader at Rancho and often did his King Tut dance.He was voted Most Talented by his classmates at Garden Grove high school.Some sources state he is a fan of the BBC science fiction series Doctor Who (1963). However, in a 2013 interview in the UK's "Uncut" magazine, he revealed this was not true, he knows nothing about it and he believed it had started as a false claim by someone on the internet.He was a good friend of Jon Pertwee. At The 69th Annual Academy Awards (1997), when the "In Memoriam" montage was being played, he was upset that Pertwee, who passed away the year before, was not included. He then stormed out and didn't return.He was one of the first celebrities to pay tribute to Robin Williams (on his Twitter feed) and as such his tribute was featured in many news reports on Williams' death.In 2005: Recipient of the 8th annual Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, awarded by the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.He is a fan of the animated series Dave the Barbarian (2004).His favorite horror movie is Black Christmas (1974). When he first met lead actress of the film, Olivia Hussey, he claimed he had seen it 27 times.While filming Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988), he and Michael Caine became good friends.His wife is a writer for The New Yorker.Release of his children's book, "The Alphabet From A to Y: With Bonus Letter Z". (2007)Best friends with Martin Short.His performance as "Navin Johnson" in The Jerk (1979) is ranked #66 on Premiere Magazine's 100 Greatest Movie Characters of All Time.He has appeared in two films that have been selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant: Disneyland Dream (1956) and The Muppet Movie (1979).