47 Facts About Steve Martin

1. Stephen Glenn Steve Martin was born on August 14, 1945 and is an American actor, comedian, writer, producer, and musician.

2. Steve Martin is known for writing the book and lyrics to the musical Bright Star and the comedy Meteor Shower (2017), both of which premiered on Broadway.

3. Steve Martin joined a comedy troupe at Knott's Berry Farm.

4. In 1967, Steve Martin transferred to UCLA and switched his major to theater.

5. Steve Martin began working local clubs at night, to mixed notices, and at twenty-one, he dropped out of college.

6. Steve Martin wrote for The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour and The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour.

7. Gary Mule Deer supplied the first joke Steve Martin submitted to Tommy Smothers for use on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour show.

8. Steve Martin opened for groups such as The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, The Carpenters, and Toto.

9. Steve Martin appeared at The Boarding House, among other venues.

10. Steve Martin continued to write, earning an Emmy nomination for his work on Van Dyke and Company in 1976.

11. Steve Martin performed "King Tut" on April 22, 1978, SNL program.

12. Steve Martin was at once a hammy populist with an uncanny, unprecedented feel for the tastes of a mass audience and a sly intellectual whose goofy shtick cunningly deconstructed stand-up comedy.

13. Concerned about his visibility in venues on such a scale, Steve Martin began to wear a distinctive three-piece white suit that became a trademark for his act.

14. Steve Martin stopped doing stand-up comedy in 1981 to concentrate on movies and did not return for thirty-five years.

15. In 2016, Steve Martin made a low-key comeback to live comedy, opening for Jerry Seinfeld.

16. Steve Martin made his first substantial feature film appearance in the musical Sgt.

17. In 1979, Steve Martin starred in the comedy film The Jerk, directed by Carl Reiner, and written by Steve Martin, Michael Elias, and Carl Gottlieb.

18. Stanley Kubrick met with him to discuss the possibility of Steve Martin starring in a screwball comedy version of Traumnovelle.

19. Steve Martin was executive producer for Domestic Life, a prime-time television series starring friend Steve Martin Mull, and a late-night series called Twilight Theater.

20. Steve Martin was anxious to perform in the movie because of his desire to avoid being typecast.

21. Steve 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, his most critically acclaimed performance up to that point.

22. Steve Martin was by now requesting almost $3 million per film, but Plaid and Two Brains both failed at the box office like Pennies, endangering his young career.

23. In 1986, Steve Martin was in the movie musical film version of the hit Off-Broadway play Little Shop of Horrors, playing the sadistic dentist, Orin Scrivello.

24. In 1987, Steve Martin joined comedian John Candy in the John Hughes movie Planes, Trains and Automobiles.

25. Steve Martin starred in the Ron Howard film Parenthood with Rick Moranis in 1989.

26. In David Mamet's 1997 thriller The Spanish Prisoner, Steve Martin played a darker role as a wealthy stranger who takes a suspicious interest in the work of a young businessman.

27. Steve Martin went on to star with Eddie Murphy in the 1999 comedy Bowfinger, which Martin wrote.

28. In 2005, Steve Martin wrote and starred in Shopgirl, based on his own novella, and starred in Cheaper by the Dozen 2.

29. Steve Martin reprised the role in 2009's The Pink Panther 2.

30. In February 2020, Steve Martin opened the 92nd Academy Awards alongside Chris Rock with comedy material.

31. In 2020, Steve Martin reprised his role as George Banks in the short Father of the Bride, Part .

32. In 1993, Steve Martin wrote his first full-length play, Picasso at the Lapin Agile.

33. Steve Martin hosted the Academy Awards solo in 2001 and 2003, and with Alec Baldwin in 2010.

34. Fan of Monty Python, in 1989 Steve Martin hosted the television special, Parrot Sketch Not Included – 20 Years of Monty Python.

35. In 2008, Steve Martin appeared with the band, In the Minds of the Living, during a show in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

36. In 2009, Steve Martin released his first all-music album, The Crow: New Songs for the 5-String Banjo with appearances from stars such as Dolly Parton.

37. In June 2009, Steve Martin played banjo along with the Steep Canyon Rangers on A Prairie Home Companion and began a two-month US tour with the Rangers in September, including appearances at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival, Carnegie Hall and Benaroya Hall in Seattle.

38. In 2011, Steve Martin narrated and appeared in the PBS documentary "Give Me The Banjo" chronicling the history of the banjo in America.

39. In 2015, Brickell and Steve Martin released So Familiar as the second installment of their partnership.

40. Recording live direct-to-disc on the first electrical sound recording system from the 1920s, they performed a version of "The Coo Coo Bird" a traditional song that Steve Martin learned from the 1960s folk music group The Holy Modal Rounders.

41. Steve Martin met with military service men and women all over the region signing thousands of autographs and posing for pictures.

42. In December 2012, Steve Martin became a father when Stringfield gave birth to a daughter.

43. In July 2004, Steve Martin purchased what he believed to be Landschaft mit Pferden, a 1915 work by Heinrich Campendonk, from a Paris gallery for approximately €700,000.

44. Concerning the experience, Steve Martin said that the Beltracchis "were quite clever in that they gave it a long provenance and they faked labels, and it came out of a collection that mingled legitimate pictures with faked pictures.

45. Steve Martin served on the Los Angeles County Museum of Art board of trustees from 1984 to 2004.

46. Steve Martin assisted in launching the National Endowment for Indigenous Visual Arts, a fund to support Australian Indigenous artists in 2021.

47. Steve Martin organized an exhibition in 2019 with Gagosian Gallery titled "Desert Painters of Australia", which featured art by George Tjungurrayi and Emily Kame Kngwarreye.