Steve Martin’s first job ever was selling guidebooks at Disneyland, where he made $0.02 for every book he sold. After that, he moved on to the Magic Shop on Disneyland’s Main Street, while he also worked in the Frontierland section.

Before becoming an actor, Martin attended Long Beach State University in California. While he was born in Texas, he was romantically involved with Stormie Sherk as a teen, which made him decide to move to California. After finishing his studies in Philosophy, he went on to study theater at UCLA.

When he was still a student, he started working for The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, writing comedic content for the show. His talent was recognized by critics and he won an Emmy award in 1969. Later, he started writing content for The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour.

When he was 17 years old, he picked up the banjo. He even used it in his stand-up shows in the 70s. His banjo performance for Earl Scruggs’s remake of “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” even earned him a Grammy award in 2001!

In 1968, he appeared on an episode of “The Dating Game,” where he tried to win the heart of Deana Martin, daughter of Dean Martin. Although it is said that he and Deana had met up beforehand, she did end up actually choosing him, Bachelor #2, and winning a trip together.

Martin started collecting works of art when he was just 21 years old, and he has nurtured his hobby to this day. One can find pieces by David Hockney, Pablo Picasso, Roy Lichtenstein, and Edward Hopper in his collection, and his fans were delighted when, in 2001, he offered up a small section of his private collection for public viewing.

Everyone today uses “air quotes”, and most of us seem to believe that the gesture has been around forever. Not really. In fact, it was Steve Martin who introduced them during one of his guest gigs on SNL. Since then, they have become a staple worldwide whenever irony is intended.

For those unfamiliar with the term, Tinnitus is actually a symptom of hearing loss, where one hears a ringing sound in their ear. It seems that Martin first got it during the filming “The Three Amigos,” where he was present for a gunfight scene.

Although he has never been a member of the “SNL” cast, he has hosted the show 15 times – second only to Alec Baldwin – and appeared on it another twelve times. Apparently, when the show first aired in 1975, Martin was not famous enough to be part of the cast.

In 2007, he married Anne Springfield, a writer and former staff member of The New Yorker magazine. Their guests – about 75 – only thought they were attending a party, until they realized they were actually attending the couple’s wedding.

In 2012, his wife Anne gave birth to their daughter, making him a first-time father at the age of 67. To this day, the couple has tried – and managed – to keep their daughter entirely out of the limelight.

Although Martin has won 5 Grammy awards and several other critics’ awards, he has never won an Oscar. According to The Guardian, he remains one of the greatest actors missing this award on his shelf.

His father didn’t quite like his son’s profession. He even said in an interview that SNL is “the most horrible thing on television.” Steve Martin once tried to explain why his father was so harsh on him, saying that “he couldn’t quite be proud of an unconventional show biz act that he didn’t quite understand.”

Who would have guessed that Steve Martin could have been a cheerleader in his teenage years?! However, as he has attested to in interviews, he was never very successful at cheerleading, since he would come up with silly or inappropriate cheers. Somehow, we’re not surprised about that part!

As Martin explained in a 2009 interview, “I still had a few obligations left but I knew that I could not continue.” Meanwhile, he has continued playing comic roles in movies and shows to this day.

Martin has not only starred in comedies. In fact, he had a leading role in the movie “Pennies From Heaven” in 1981. Sadly, the movie was not received as warmly by the audience as they’d hoped, and he decided to turn to comedy exclusively. Still, he has appeared in a few dramatic roles since.

In 2010, he created the Steve Martin Prize for Excellence in Banjo. This prize, which consists of $50,000, and a bronze sculpture, is meant to encourage new artists to keep doing what they love and what Martin also loves: playing the banjo.

Young Steve Martin used to suffer from panic attacks. In fact, as he mentions in his autobiography, one of them was so severe that he thought he was having a heart attack. Thankfully, he didn’t and, as time went by, things got better.

At a younger age, Martin used to worry too much about his health. Eventually, he stopped being overly stressed about it, because as he explained: “I worried all these years that I was going to die, and I never did. So why waste all that worry?”

Stanley Kubrick was a great admirer of the comic actor, so when he saw Martin in The Jerk, he approached him in order to discuss a potential collaboration. At the time, the director envisioned the movie as a sex comedy!