102 Facts About Steve Martin

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

Steve Martin received the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 2005, the Kennedy Center Honors in 2007, and an AFI Life Achievement Award in 2015.

Steve Martin first came to public notice as a writer for The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, for which he won a Primetime Emmy Award in 1969, and later as a frequent host on Saturday Night Live.

Steve Martin became one of the most popular American stand-up comedians during the 1970s, performing his brand of offbeat, absurdist comedy routines before sold-out theaters on national tours.

Steve Martin played family patriarchs in Parenthood, the Father of the Bride films, Bringing Down the House, and the Cheaper by the Dozen films.

Since 2015, Steve Martin has embarked on several national comedy tours with fellow comedian Steve Martin Short.

Steve Martin is known for writing the books to the musical Bright Star and to the comedy Meteor Shower, both of which premiered on Broadway; he co-wrote the music to the former.

Steve Martin has played banjo since an early age and has included music in his comedy routines from the beginning of his professional career.

Steve Martin has released several music albums and has performed with various bluegrass acts, including Earl Scruggs.

Steve Martin has won three Grammy Awards for his music.

Stephen Glenn Steve Martin was born on August 14,1945, in Waco, Texas, the son of Mary Lee and Glenn Vernon Steve Martin, a real estate salesman and aspiring actor.

Steve Martin is of English, Scottish, Welsh, Scots-Irish, German, and French descent.

Steve Martin and his sister grew up in a Baptist family in Inglewood, California, and later in Garden Grove in Orange County; he was a cheerleader at Garden Grove High School.

Steve Martin was proud but critical, with Steve later recalling that in his teens his feelings for his father were mostly of hatred.

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

Sherk's influence led Steve Martin to apply to the California State University, Long Beach, for enrollment with a major in philosophy.

Steve Martin recalls reading a treatise on comedy that led him to think:.

Steve Martin periodically spoofed his philosophy studies in his 1970s stand-up act, comparing philosophy with studying geology.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Steve Martin's next album, A Wild and Crazy Guy, was an even bigger success, reaching the No 2 spot on the US sales chart, selling over a million copies.

The album ends with the song "King Tut", written and sung by Steve Martin and backed by the "Toot Uncommons", members of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.

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

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.

On his comedy albums, Steve Martin's stand-up is self-referential and sometimes self-mocking.

Steve Martin's style is off-kilter and ironic and sometimes pokes fun at stand-up comedy traditions, such as Martin opening his act by saying:.

Steve Martin's show soon required full-sized stadiums for the audiences he was drawing.

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.

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

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

Steve Martin performed a ten-minute stand-up routine before turning the stage over to Seinfeld.

The special received four Primetime Emmy Award nominations with Steve Martin receiving two nominations for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Special and Outstanding Music and Lyrics for "The Buddy Song".

Steve Martin had a small role in the 1972 film Another Nice Mess.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

That same year, Steve Martin starred in Roxanne, the film adaptation of Cyrano de Bergerac, which he co-wrote and won him a Writers Guild of America Award.

Steve Martin played Vladimir, with Robin Williams as Estragon and Bill Irwin as Lucky.

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

Steve Martin later re-teamed with Moranis in the Mafia comedy My Blue Heaven.

Steve Martin appeared in Lawrence Kasdan's Grand Canyon, in which he played the tightly wound Hollywood film producer, Davis, who was recovering from a traumatic robbery that left him injured, which was a more serious role for him.

Steve Martin starred in a remake of the comedy Father of the Bride in 1991 and in the 1992 comedy Housesitter, with Goldie Hawn and Dana Delany.

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.

In 1998, Steve Martin guest starred with U2 in the 200th episode of The Simpsons titled "Trash of the Titans", providing the voice for sanitation commissioner Ray Patterson, and voiced Hotep in the animated film The Prince of Egypt.

Steve Martin appeared in Disney's Fantasia 2000 to introduce the segment Pines of Rome, along with Itzhak Perlman.

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

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

Steve Martin appeared as a guest star in 30 Rock as Gavin Volure in the episode Gavin Volure.

Steve Martin was nominated for an Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series.

Steve Martin appeared as himself in Jerry Seinfeld's Netflix series Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee in 2016.

Steve Martin appeared in the taped version of Oh, Hello on Broadway as the guest.

Steve Martin starred in the Netflix comedy special An Evening You Will Forget for the Rest of Your Life with Martin Short in 2018.

In 2020, Steve Martin reprised his role as George Banks in the short Father of the Bride, Part 3.

Steve Martin is an executive producer of Only Murders in the Building, a Hulu comedy series in which he stars with Steve Martin Short and Selena Gomez, and which he created alongside John Hoffman.

Steve Martin has written the novellas Shopgirl and The Pleasure of My Company, both more wry in tone than raucous.

In 2022, they collaborated again for Steve Martin's illustrated autobiography, Number One is Walking.

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

Steve Martin himself received Tony nominations for Best Book of a Musical and Best Original Score and received the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Music and the Outstanding Critics Circle Award for Best New Score.

Steve Martin received a Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album.

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

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

In 2005, Steve Martin co-hosted Disneyland: The First 50 Magical Years, marking the park's anniversary.

Steve Martin first picked up the banjo when he was around 17 years of age.

Steve Martin has stated in several interviews and in his memoir, Born Standing Up, that he used to take 33 rpm bluegrass records and slow them down to 16 rpm and tune his banjo down, so the notes would sound the same.

Steve Martin was able to pick out each note and perfect his playing.

Steve Martin learned how to play the banjo with help from John McEuen, who later joined the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.

Steve Martin did his stand-up routine opening for the band in the early 1970s.

Steve Martin had the band play on his hit song "King Tut", being credited as "The Toot Uncommons".

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

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.

Steve Martin made his first appearance on The Grand Ole Opry on May 30,2009.

Steve Martin is featured playing banjo on "I Hate Love" from Kelly Clarkson's tenth studio album Chemistry.

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.

Steve Martin performed "Jubilation Day" with the Steep Canyon Rangers on The Colbert Report on March 21,2011, on Conan on May 3,2011, and on BBC's The One Show on July 6,2011.

Steve Martin performed a song he wrote called "Me and Paul Revere" in addition to two other songs on the lawn of the Capitol Building in Washington, DC, at the "Capitol Fourth Celebration" on July 4,2011.

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

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

At the beginning of his career in comedy, Steve Martin dated writer and artist Eve Babitz, who suggested he dress in what became his trademark white suit.

From 1977 to 1980, Steve Martin was in a relationship with Bernadette Peters, with whom he co-starred in The Jerk and Pennies from Heaven.

Steve Martin dated Karen Carpenter, Mary Tyler Moore and Anne Heche, who wrote about their relationship in her memoir.

Steve Martin went on a USO Tour to Saudi Arabia during Operation Desert Storm from October 14 to 21,1990.

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

On July 28,2007, Steve Martin married writer and former New Yorker staff member Anne Stringfield.

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

Steve Martin has been an avid art collector since 1968, when he bought a print by Ed Ruscha.

In 2001, the Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art presented a five-month exhibit of twenty-eight items from Steve Martin's collection, including works by Roy Lichtenstein, Pablo Picasso, David Hockney, and Edward Hopper.

Steve Martin only discovered the fact that the painting had been fake many years after it had been sold at the auction.

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

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

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.

Steve Martin has tinnitus; the condition was first attributed to filming a pistol shooting scene for Three Amigos in 1986, but Steve Martin later clarified that the tinnitus was actually from years of listening to loud music and performing in front of noisy crowds.

Steve Martin has said that his comedy influences include Charlie Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy, Jack Benny, Jerry Lewis, and Woody Allen.

Singer and composer Mike Patton cited Steve Martin as being an early influence saying that he identifies with Martin.