Steve Martin Biography

Fast Facts

• From ages 10 to 15, he sold guidebooks at Disneyland
• At 15, he was promoted to the Merlin Magic Shop, where he worked for three years
• Wrote and starred in the 1977 short film The Absent-Minded Waiter, which was nominated for an Academy Award
• Made his New York theater debut opposite Robin Williams in a 1988 revival of Waiting for Godot, directed by Mike Nichols
• An accomplished banjo player who played on Earl Scruggs' Grammy-winning "Foggy Mountain Breakdown," which won for Best Country Instrumental Performance in 2001
• A trustee of the Los Angeles Museum of Art and an avid collector who owns works by Picasso and Georgia O'Keeffe, among others
• In the '00s, multiple tabloids linked him with actress Kristin Davis
• It turned out that he was dating New Yorker staffer Anne Stringfield, who happened to resemble the Sex and the City star
• Received the eighth annual Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 2005
• In 2007, he received a Kennedy Center Honor
• Published his autobiography, Born Standing Up, in 2007
• Released a bluegrass album, The Crow: New Songs for the Five-String Banjo (2009), which earned him a Grammy Award
• Co-hosted the 82nd Academy Awards with Alec Baldwin