HE STARTED HIS CAREER AT DISNEYLAND
“I knew every nook and cranny of [Merlin’s Magic Shop in Fantasyland],” recalls Steve Martin, who even got the idea for his famous catchphrase from a co-worker who often said, “Excuse me for living.” “I abbreviated it to, ‘Well, excuuuuuuse me.’ The phrase caught on with people and became independent of the bit that went before.”
HE WAS A THREE-TIME WINNER ON ‘THE DATING GAME’
“I got picked three times,” says Steve, who appeared on the show in the late 1960s. “I won a trip to see Wayne Newton. I won a trip to Tijuana to the bullfights, and then the big one was I won a trip to Portofino, Italy, with Deana Martin, Dean Martin’s daughter.”
HE’S WON TWO GRAMMYS FOR HIS BANJO PLAYING
“I always loved the sound of the banjo when I first heard it at age 16. It affected me like no other instrument,” he says. “I used to practice in the car, late at night, and even then, it would echo down the street.”
HE BECAME A FIRST-TIME FATHER AT 67
“When I was younger, I was selfish and focused on my career,” says Steve, who wed writer Anne Stringfield, his second wife, in 2007. “Now I’m just hanging around the house playing with [my daughter]…. Oh, it’s fantastic — you have all the time in the world.”
HE’S NOT LOOKING FOR MORE WORK
“When [Only Murders] is done, I’m not going to seek others,” he says. “I have a family life that’s really fun. To film a movie now, to go someplace else to live, I’m not willing to do that anymore.”
