Steve as Orin Scrivello
Steve Martin (ORIN SCRIVELLO):
Working
as a Disneyland concessionaire in his teens, Martin picked up skills in
"a little of this, a little of that: juggling, tap-dancing, sleight
of hand, balloon sculpting. He then attended UCLA, where he majored in
philosophy and theatre, moving on to staff-writer stints for such TV performers
as Glen Campbell, The Smothers Brothers, Dick Van Dyke, John Denver, and
Sonny and Cher.
Martin didn't go into standup comedy full time until the late 1960s, when he moved to Canada and appeared as a semi-regular on the TV variety series Half the George Kirby Comedy Hour. By 1975, he was the Comic of the Hour, convulsing audiences with his feigned enthusiasm over the weakest of jokes and the most obvious of comedy props (rabbit ears, head arrows).
Ignoring
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1977), Martin's true screen bow
was The Jerk (1979). Had he been a lesser performer, Martin could have
played variations on The Jerk for the remainder of his life, but he preferred
to seek out new challenges. It took nerve to go against the sensibilities
of his fans with an on-edge portrayal of a habitual loser in Pennies from
Heaven (1981), but Martin was successful, even if the film wasn't.
After a first-rate turn in All of Me (1984), in which he played a man whose body is inhabited by the soul of a woman, Martin's film work began to fluctuate in quality, only to emerge on top again with Roxanne (1987), a potentially silly but ultimately compelling update of Cyrano de Bergerac.
With
as many hits and misses in the late 1980s-early 1990s, Martin was still
full of surprises, as witnessed in his unsympathetic portrayal in Planes,
Trains & Automobiles (1989), his angst-ridden father in Parenthood
(1989), and his callow film producer in Grand Canyon (1991) -- though
the public still seemed to prefer his standard comic performances in Father
of the Bride (1991) and L.A. Story (1991). Martin went out on yet another
artistic limb with A Simple Twist of Fate (1994) -- a film updating of
that high-school English class perennial Silas Marner.
In addition to his Hollywood activities, Martin is well-known for his
intellectual pursuits. His play Picasso at the Lapin Agile played successfully
off-Broadway, and he has made numerous contributions of humor pieces to
The New Yorker magazine.
~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Steve's Filmography:
Contact the WebMaster at m.a.coombes@durham.ac.uk