Happy 80th Birthday, Steve Martin! Celebrate with the Comedy Legend’s Life in Photos

When STEVE! (Martin) A Documentary in 2 Pieces was released in fall 2024, his Only Murders in the Building costar Selena Gomez said that it “pains” her “how many people may not know truly about Steve [Martin]’s life.” After all, he’s not just a comedian and actor, but also an accomplished banjo player, published author and screenwriter.

As he turns 80 on Thursday, August 14 — and prepares to release another season of his hit Hulu show with Gomez and Martin Short — look back at the accomplished life and career of the man Gomez calls “truly an icon.”

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Steve Martin in High School

Steve Martin grew up near California’s Disneyland and spent his teen years working at the park, selling guidebooks and souvenirs before moving on to the Fantasyland magic shop. According to a Disney profile, he “learned all the tricks, and collected all the jokes, writing down every gag.”

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Steve Martin on ‘The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour’

Always a standout on sketch shows, Steve Martin made several appearances on Cher and Sonny Bono’s The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour, which ran for four seasons in the early 1970s.

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Steve Martin in ‘The Muppet Movie,’ 1979

Steve Martin’s history with The Muppets runs deep, and after guesting on The Muppet Show in 1977 (with his trusty banjo), he made a hilarious cameo as a disgruntled waiter in The Muppet Movie in 1979.

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Steve Martin in ‘The Jerk,’ 1979

Steve Martin got into character on the set of his wildly popular 1979 film, the Carl Reiner comedy The Jerk, for which he wrote the screenplay.

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Steve Martin and Bernadette Peters, 1981

Steve Martin dated Broadway icon Bernadette Peters in the early 1980s; according to an InStyle story, they crossed paths in the late 1970s in part through Kenny Rogers’ celebrity softball league.

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Steve Martin and Mary Tyler Moore, 1982

Mary Tyler Moore and Steve Martin also dated in the 1980s, and he was on hand to support her at the Six Weeks premiere in L.A. in 1982.

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Steve Martin and Victoria Tennant

Steve Martin and Victoria Tennant, who were married from 1986 to 1994, walked the red carpet at the AFI Life Achievement Awards Honoring Gene Kelly in Beverly Hills.

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Steve Martin in ‘Three Amigos,’ 1986

Saturday Night Live stars Chevy Chase and Martin Short brought their “Three Amigos” skit to the big screen alongside Steve Martin with a 1986 musical comedy that made almost $40 million at the box office.

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Steve Martin in ‘Planes, Trains and Automobiles,’ 1987

“John Candy was very sensitive and very complex and we really loved each other,” Steve Martin shared of his late Planes, Trains and Automobiles costar in his documentary. During one particular monologue from Candy’s character, Del Griffith, Martin said, “I was opposite him. I was weeping as he was performing it.”

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Steve Martin and The Smothers Brothers, 1988

Steve Martin got his start writing for several seasons of The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour in the late 1960s, making a cameo on an episode himself. In 1988, he reunited with the brothers Tom and Dick themselves, alongside singer Glen Campbell.

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Steve Martin in ‘Parenthood,’ 1989

Playing a stressed-out dad in this Ron Howard classic earned Steve Martin his fourth of eight Golden Globe Award nominations (to date).

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Steve Martin in ‘Father of the Bride,’ 1991

Steve Martin’s hilarious, relatable work as the titular father of the bride earned him another Golden Globe Award nod and an MTV Movie Award nomination, too.

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Steve Martin on ‘SNL,’ 1991

Some might be surprised to hear Steve Martin was never an SNL cast member; however, he has hosted a staggering 16 times since the late ’70s and popped up as a guest on dozens of episodes during the show’s tenure. Here, he led a 1991 sketch alongside Mike Myers, Julia Sweeney and Dana Carvey.

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Steve Martin in ‘Leap of Faith,’ 1992

As no-good “faith healer” Jonas Nightengale, Steve Martin was delightfully “a seedy, desperate, bright, greedy man without hope,” wrote Roger Ebert in his review.

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Steve Martin and Martin Short, 1999

Though they play besties on Only Murders, Steve Martin and Martin Short have been close in real life for years. Here they are at Martin’s Bowfinger premiere in Los Angeles in 1999.

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Steve Martin and Anne Stringfield, 2002

Martin met his future wife, writer Anne Stringfield, when she was fact-checking an comedic essay he submitted toThe New Yorker, where she worked. The pair eventually married in 2007, and at age 67, Martin became a first-time father when Stringfield gave birth to their daughter Mary.

“She makes it all possible. She has one of the most important qualities a person can have — and that’s kindness,” he said of Stringfield in 2015.

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Steve Martin in ‘The Pink Panther,’ 2006

He co-wrote and starred in a reboot of the hit comedy film series The Pink Panther, playing bumbling detective Inspector Jacques Clouseau.

On reviving the iconic franchise, Martin told IndieLondon, “Movies have been remade since the 1920s — look at King Kong. No one says, ‘Oh, I can’t do Hamlet, because Richard Burton did it.’ To me, The Pink Panther is Hamlet for comedians.”

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Steve Martin in ‘Only Murders in the Building,’ 2021

After limited appearances on TV and film throughout the 2010s, Martin returned to screens with a splash alongside his partner-in-comedy Short. The duo teamed up with Gomez to become a mystery-solving trio for Hulu’s award-winning Only Murders in the Building.

In 2022, Martin alluded to the show being his career’s final act.

“When this television show is done, I’m not going to seek others,” he told The Hollywood Reporter. “I’m not going to seek other movies. I don’t want to do cameos. This is, weirdly, it.”

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