Andrea Louise Martin (born January 15, 1947) is an American and Canadian actress and comedian, best known for her work in the television series SCTV and Great News. She has appeared in films such as Black Christmas (1974) and its 2006 remake, Wag the Dog (1997), Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001), My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002), My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 (2016), Little Italy (2018) and My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 (2023). Martin is also a prolific voice actress, lending her voice to many animated series and films, including Anastasia (1997), The Rugrats Movie (1998), and Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius (2001). From 2021 to 2024, she co-starred in the supernatural drama series Evil. She plays a recurring role on Only Murders in the Building as of 2021.
Martin has been equally prolific in the world of theatre, winning Tony Awards for both My Favorite Year and the 2013 revival of Pippin. Martin also appeared on Broadway in Candide, Oklahoma!, Fiddler on the Roof, Young Frankenstein, Exit the King, and Act One. She has received five nominations for the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical, more than any other actress in the award's history. She received her first nomination for the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for the 2016 revival of Noises Off.
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Early life and education
Andrea Martin was born on January 15, 1947, in Portland, Maine, the eldest of three children of Armenian-American parents Sybil Martin (Armenian: Սիբիլ Մանուկեան Մարթին; née Manoogian) and John Papazian Martin (Armenian: Ջօն Փափազեան Մարթին; 1917–2010). Her paternal grandparents, from Van, present-day Turkey, had escaped the Armenian Genocide. Her maternal grandmother immigrated to the U.S. at the age of 15. Her paternal grandfather, an amateur thespian, changed the family's name from Papazian to Martin. Her maternal grandparents, who were from Constantinople, started the Armenian School at the Chestnut Street Church in Portland, Maine. Andrea's father owned Martin's Foods, a grocery-store chain. She has mentioned that although her grandparents "did not know what assimilation was," her parents worked hard to assimilate into the U.S. As such, Martin only connected with her ancestry later in life.
When she was two years old, her mother was recovering from a broken leg, so she would often read to her daughter. She and her mother would often take turns reading Shakespeare, Paul Revere's Ride, and Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven. She took piano lessons when she was eight, reciting a poem about a kitten at the rotunda of the Portland Museum of Art and playing the piano there. Martin transferred from Nathan Clifford School to St. Joseph's Academy before entering high school. She graduated from Deering High School in 1965, where she was a member of the Dramatic Club and won Miss Deering High 1965.
Career
Martin won a role in a touring company of You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown. After frequent visits to Toronto, she relocated from New York City to Toronto in 1970 and immediately found steady work in television, film, and theater.
In 1972, Martin played the character Robin in a Toronto production of Godspell, with a company that included future stars Gilda Radner, Martin Short, Eugene Levy, and Victor Garber, and musical director Paul Shaffer. Two of her early film roles were in horror films, 1973's Cannibal Girls (directed by Ivan Reitman), for which she won the Sitges Film Festival Award for Best Actress, and 1974's Black Christmas.
In 1976, she joined then-unknowns John Candy, Dave Thomas, Eugene Levy, Catherine O'Hara, Harold Ramis, and Joe Flaherty on the Canadian sketch comedy television series SCTV, which was set at fictional television station "Second City Television", or SCTV, in Melonville. Martin most notably portrayed leopard print-wearing station manager Edith Prickley, whose dealings with the staff, including president/owner Guy Caballero, clueless newscaster Earl Camembert, and washed-up actor Johnny LaRue, helped to provide much of the show's humor. Other notable characters Martin played included Pirini Scleroso, an immigrant from Eastern Europe, organ saleswoman Edna Boil, feminist TV show host Libby Wolfson, and children's entertainer Mrs. Falbo. Her talent for impersonation was key in her humorous portrayals of Barbra Streisand, Anne Murray, Ethel Merman, Arlene Francis, Pauline Kael, Sally Field, Sophia Loren, Beverly Sills, Lynn Redgrave, Linda Lavin, Bernadette Peters, Liza Minnelli, Connie Francis, Mother Teresa, Joni Mitchell, Alice B. Toklas, Patti Smith, Brenda Vaccaro, and Indira Gandhi. In 1981, Martin was Emmy-nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Variety Show for her work in SCTV.
Her 1970s stage work eventually included the Toronto branch of the improvisational comedy troupe The Second City, a group that produced almost the entire cast of SCTV. In 1992, she made her Broadway debut in the musical My Favorite Year, for which she won the Tony Award, Theatre World Award, and Drama Desk Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical.
Her additional Broadway credits include Candide (1997) and Oklahoma! (2002), and the Broadway premiere of Young Frankenstein (2007), all of which brought her Tony Award nominations for Best Featured Actress in a Musical.
Personal life
Martin divides her time between Los Angeles and Toronto, and, in 2017, became a Canadian citizen. She was previously married to Bob Dolman and had two sons with him, Joe and Jack. She has a grandchild via her elder son. Through her marriage to Dolman, she was the sister-in-law of actor/comedian Martin Short, who married Dolman's sister Nancy.
Martin, alongside Tina Fey, is a frequent attendee of the annual Children of Armenia Fund (COAF), a benefit that aims to raise money for impoverished children in Armenia.
Martin is a close friend of Tina Fey, citing an Armenian-Greek kinship that she felt on the set of Hulu's Difficult People.
Filmography
Awards and nominations
Published works
Martin, Andrea (2014). Andrea Martin's Lady Parts. Harper. ISBN 978-0062387288.