This column first appeared in August 2009. Al is completing a major project.
One of the most recognizable character actors of all time, Strother Martin (Jr.) was born in Kokomo, Indiana on March 26, 1919. Strother was the youngest of three children born to father Strother Douglas Martin, a machinist, and mother Ethel Dunlap Martin. He grew up in Indianapolis, graduated from Washington High School and lived for a short time in Cloverdale, Indiana. As a teen, Strother excelled in swimming and diving and at the age of 17, while representing the Indianapolis Athletic Club, he won the National Junior Springboard Diving Championship. Strother got the nickname “T-Bone Martin” from his diving expertise and earned an athletic scholarship to the University of Michigan where he became an award-winning diver while majoring in drama. He entered the adult National Springboard diving competition in hopes of gaining a berth on the 1948 U.S. Olympic team, but finished third in the competition.
After serving as a swimming instructor in the U.S. Navy during World War II, Martin moved to Los Angeles and found work in Hollywood teaching swimming to the children of movie stars like Charlie Chaplin and Marion Davies. He got his first break as a swimming extra in water scenes in films, eventually earning bit roles in a number of pictures. He quickly became a fixture in memorable character roles in movies and television through the 1950s, appearing in shows such as I Love Lucy, Perry Mason, Lost in Space, The Dick Van Dyke Show and Gunsmoke. He would return to TV later in his career appearing in Gilligan’s Island, The Rockford Files and as host of Saturday Night Live shortly before his death in 1980.
However, it’s the distinctive characters created by the diminutive 5’ 7” actor which he himself described as “prairie scum” that he is best remembered for today. Martin’s distinctive, reedy voice and menacing demeanor made him ideal for villainous roles in many of the best-known films of the 1960s and 1970s. Though he usually appeared in supporting roles in classics like The Horse Soldiers and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, by the late 1960s, Martin was almost as well-known a figure as many top-billed movie stars. Strother Martin’s breakthrough role was in the 1967 Paul Newman film Cool Hand Luke, playing the part of a tough prison warden where he uttered the high pitched nasal twang line “What we got here…is a failure to communicate!” that became a part of American film lexicon. Martin appeared in all three of the classic Westerns released in 1969: The Wild Bunch, True Grit, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. He played Bolivian mine owner Percy Garrett who shouts “Bingo” every time he spits tobacco and hits his target who gets shot after telling Butch and Sundance that he’s “colorful.”
Martin often played grimy, unlikeable villains and specialized in portraying unique unsavory characters, laying the groundwork for dozens of character actors that would come after him. Cult classic films seemed to follow Strother Martin around; Hard Times, Rooster Cogburn, Slap Shot and Cheech & Chong’s Up in Smoke. He appeared six times each with John Wayne and Paul Newman. No less an authority than lifelong friend and legendary director Sam Peckinpah described Strother Martin this way, “He just happens to be one of the finest actors in the world.”
Ironically, Martin achieved most of his fame and acclaim in the last decade of his life. He worked steadily in substantial roles throughout the 1970s and seemed at the peak of his career when he died suddenly at the age of 61 of a heart attack on August 1, 1980 in Thousand Oaks, California. Martin is interred at Forest Lawn/Hollywood Hills cemetery in Los Angeles, California.
In one of his last interviews, when asked about his huge success at an advanced age, Strother Martin said: “Age is as much an asset for character players as it is for good wine. Human experiences, both good and bad, leave their marks on one’s face and bearing. A few lines on the face and a few gray hairs coupled with the idiosyncrasies an actor adopts throughout life help out round out the actor’s personality. So far as I’m concerned, the older a character actor gets, the firmer his position is.”
Al Hunter is the author of the “Haunted Indianapolis” and co-author of the “Haunted Irvington” and “Indiana National Road” book series. His newest books are “Bumps in the Night. Stories from the Weekly View,” “Irvington Haunts. The Tour Guide,” and “The Mystery of the H.H. Holmes Collection.” Contact Al directly at Huntvault@aol.com or become a friend on Facebook.
