Andrea Martin

Andrea Martin is an American and Canadian actress, comedian, and voice performer born on January 15, 1947, in Portland, Maine. She is the eldest of three children born to Sybil Martin (née Manoogian) and John Papazian Martin, both of Armenian-American heritage. Her paternal grandparents, originally from Van in present-day Turkey, had fled the Armenian Genocide. Her maternal grandparents, from Constantinople, founded the Armenian School at the Chestnut Street Church in Portland. Her paternal grandfather, an amateur thespian, changed the family surname from Papazian to Martin. Martin's father owned Martin's Foods, a grocery-store chain. Martin has noted that while her grandparents had little awareness of assimilation, her parents worked deliberately to integrate into American life, and she connected with her Armenian heritage only later in life.

Martin attended Nathan Clifford School before transferring to St. Joseph's Academy, and she graduated from Deering High School in 1965, where she was a member of the Dramatic Club and was named Miss Deering High 1965. Early performance experiences included reciting a poem about a kitten and playing piano at the rotunda of the Portland Museum of Art at the age of eight. She went on to win a role in a touring company of You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown. After frequent visits to Toronto, she relocated there from New York City in 1970, where she quickly found work in television, film, and theater.

In 1972, Martin played the character Robin in a Toronto production of Godspell alongside future stars Gilda Radner, Martin Short, Eugene Levy, and Victor Garber, with Paul Shaffer serving as musical director. Among her early film roles were the 1973 horror film Cannibal Girls, directed by Ivan Reitman, for which she won the Sitges Film Festival Award for Best Actress, and the 1974 horror film Black Christmas. In 1976, she joined the Canadian sketch comedy series SCTV, working alongside John Candy, Dave Thomas, Eugene Levy, Catherine O'Hara, Harold Ramis, and Joe Flaherty. On the series, set at the fictional Second City Television station in Melonville, Martin was particularly known for her portrayal of leopard print-wearing station manager Edith Prickley. She also played characters including Pirini Scleroso, an Eastern European immigrant, organ saleswoman Edna Boil, feminist TV host Libby Wolfson, and children's entertainer Mrs. Falbo. Her work on SCTV earned her an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Variety Show in 1981, and she subsequently won two Emmy Awards for Outstanding Writing in a Variety or Music Program in 1982 and 1983. Her 1970s stage work in Toronto included the improvisational comedy troupe The Second City, which produced nearly the entire cast of SCTV.

Martin made her Broadway debut in 1992 in the musical My Favorite Year, for which she won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical, a Theatre World Award, and a Drama Desk Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical. Her subsequent Broadway appearances have included Candide, Oklahoma!, the Broadway premiere of Young Frankenstein, and Exit the King, in which she starred alongside Geoffrey Rush and Susan Sarandon, playing Juliette and earning nominations for a Drama Desk Award and an Outer Critics Circle Award. She also appeared in Act One, the play written and directed by James Lapine, for which she received the Outer Critics Circle Award. Additional Broadway credits include Noises Off, Funny Girl, McNeal, A Christmas Carol, and the musical Candide, with her Broadway career spanning from 1969 to 2024.

During the winter of 2012 to 2013, Martin played Berthe, Pippin's grandmother, in the American Repertory Theater production of Pippin in Cambridge, Massachusetts, performing the song "No Time At All." The production transferred to Broadway's Music Box Theatre, opening in April 2013. For her performance in Pippin, Martin won the Tony Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical, the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical, and the Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical. Her final performance as Berthe in the Broadway production took place on September 22, 2013. Martin 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, and also received a nomination for the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for the 2016 revival of Noises Off.

Outside of Broadway, Martin wrote and performed the one-woman show Nude, Nude, Totally Nude in Los Angeles and New York City, earning a 1996 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding One Person Show. Her regional theater credits include leading roles in The Rose Tattoo and Betty's Summer Vacation, both produced at the Huntington Theatre in Boston, with the latter earning her the Elliot Norton Award for Best Actress.

Martin's screen work spans several decades and includes films such as 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), as well as the 2006 remake of Black Christmas. She is widely recognized for her long-running role on SCTV and has also appeared in the television series Great News. From 2021 to 2024, she co-starred in the supernatural drama series Evil, and beginning in 2021 she has played a recurring role on Only Murders in the Building.

Martin is also an extensive voice performer, having contributed to animated productions including Anastasia (1997), The Rugrats Movie (1998), and Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius (2001), as well as numerous animated television series. She played Wanda Falbo the Word Fairy in a recurring segment on Sesame Street beginning in 1989, a character derived from her SCTV character Mrs. Falbo. She is also known to Star Trek fans as one of two actresses to portray Ishka, Quark's mother, in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.