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Steve Martin: From Standup To Movie Star And Writer

September 28, 2012
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This interview is an combination of broadcasts from Oct. 22, 2008 and Oct. 6, 2003. His early standup routines, TV specials and other TV appearances have been released in a new DVD box set.

Steve Martin went from performing in an empty San Francisco coffee house to hosting the Oscars. In between, he spent 18 years as a stand-up comic — four of them, by his account, successful years.

In his memoir Born Standing Up, Martin chronicles those stand-up years, the childhood (including a brief career at Disneyland) that came before them, and the perils and pleasures of celebrity.

He was the star of such films as The Jerk, All of Me, Roxanne, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Parenthood, LA Story, Father of the Bride, The Spanish Prisoner, Bowfinger and Bringing Down the House.

Martin has also established himself as a novelist. Shopgirl, the novel he published in 2000, was a best-seller.

He talks about why, at the height of his stand-up fame, he put that life behind him to take up acting and writing. He calls the book not an autobiography, but a biography of a guy he used to know.

Copyright 2012 National Public Radio. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

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