Steve Martin: Biography

• Overview
• Discography
• Biography
• Related Artists

• Robin Williams
• Carl Reiner
• Jonathan Winters

• The Smothers Brothers

• Christian Finnegan
• Todd Barry
• Eugene Mirman

Born:

Aug 14, 1945 in Waco, TX

Genres:

Music Comedy, Spoken Comedy

Decades Active:

1970's|1980's|1990's|2000's

Artistic Quality

High

Cultural Impact

High

Popularity

High

Ratings Guide

During the 1970s, Steve Martin was the most successful standup comedian in America, earning the level of commercial success sellout arena performances, platinum records, hit singles and delirous fan adulatation usually reserved for rock stars. Although his career went on to encompass stints as an acclaimed dramatic actor and playwright, for many supporters the "Wild and Crazy Guy" persona defined on his comedy records remains Martin's true artistic legacy.

Although born August 14, 1945 in Waco, Texas, Martin spent the majority of his childhood in California, eventually working a concession booth at Disneyland as a teen. There he learned a variety of performing skills ranging from magic and juggling to playing the banjo and sculpting balloon animals. After graduating college, Martin began writing, and occasionally performing, comic material for television programs including The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, The Glen Campbell Hour and The Sonny and Cher Show. At the tail end of the 1960s he moved to Canada, where, in addition to appearing as a semiregular on the syndicated series Half the George Kirby Comedy Hour, he also began working as a standup.

Soon, Martin graduated to opening for rock performers, where his long hair, scraggly beard and hippie wardrobe aligned him firmly with the counterculture movement of the era. However, while in his twenties his hair began to go white; gradually, Martin began adapting his onstage persona to fit the change, reemerging as a cleancut, immaculately dressed conservative. The contrast with his increasingly highconcept comic idenity was sharp: superficially silly and daft, Martin's act contemptuously mocked the inherent stupidity of the standup form, mining catchphrases, props and schtick to create a unique brand of scathing anticomedy.

After earning a following on the standup circuit, Martin rose to national prominence thanks to a series of guest appearances on the NBC network's sketchcomedy phenomenon Saturday Night Live, as well as a number of performances on The Tonight Show. With the release of his 1977 album debut Let's Get Small, Martin's career exploded; the record reached the Top Ten, his concerts became immediate sellouts, and oneliners like "I am...one wild and crazy guy" and "Well excuuuse me" became hip catch phrases. After a cameo in the musical Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, he made his proper film debut with 1978's The Jerk, which he also scripted; additionally, he wrote a bestselling book, Cruel Shoes.

1978 also marked the release of A Wild and Crazy Guy, Martin's most successful LP. Another platinum seller, it reached the number two slot on the charts on the strength of the hilarious hit single "King Tut," a pseudodisco record mocking the thencurrent national obsession with the legendary Egyptian ruler. Nonetheless, Martin was clearly losing interest in the narrow parameters of the standup form; after his final two albums, 1979's Comedy Is Not Pretty and the following year's Steve Martin Brothers, he made the film musical Pennies From Heaven, a significant move away from his idiotic Jerk persona, and eventually retired from standup performance altogether.

After several underappreciated comedies in tandem with director Carl Reiner (including the clever Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid), Martin won acclaim for his superb slapstick performance in 1984's All of Me. With his sweet performance and stellar screenplay for 1987's Roxanne, a delicate comic spin on Cyrano de Bergerac, he won the critical success which long eluded him, and soon graduated into dramatic roles in films like Lawrence Kasdan's Grand Canyon and the Silas Marner update A Simple Twist of Fate. Still, by the 1990s Martin seemed largely disenchanted with Hollywood filmmaking, virtually sleepwalking through bland, mainstream comedies like Father of the Bride and Sgt. Bilko; instead, he focused his energies on the stage, writing the acclaimed theatrical production Picasso at the Lapin Agile.

- Jason Ankeny, All Music Guide