Andrea Martin

Andrea Louise Martin (born January 15, 1947) is an American-Canadian actress, singer, and comedian, best known for her work in the television series SCTV and Great News. She has appeared in films such as Black Christmas (1974), Wag the Dog (1997), Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001), My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002), My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 (2016), and Little Italy (2018). She has also lent her voice to the animated films Anastasia (1997), The Rugrats Movie (1998), and Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius (2001). Martin has been equally prolific in the world of theater, winning Tony Awards for both My Favorite Year and the 2013 revival of Pippin. Martin also appeared on Broadway in Candide, Oklahoma!, Fiddler on the Roof, Young Frankenstein, Exit the King, and Act One. She 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. She received her first nomination for the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for the 2016 revival of Noises Off. Early life Andrea Martin was born on January 15, 1947, in Portland, Maine, the eldest of three children of Armenian-American parents Sybil A. (née Manoogian) and John Papazian Martin (; 1917–2010). Her paternal grandparents were from Van, present-day Turkey, who had escaped the Armenian Genocide. Her maternal grandmother immigrated to the U.S. at the age of 15. Her paternal grandfather, an amateur thespian, changed the family's name from Papazian to Martin. Her maternal grandparents, who were from Constantinople, started the Armenian School at the Chestnut Street Church in Portland, Maine. Andrea's father owned Martin's Foods, a grocery-store chain. She has mentioned that although her grandparents "did not know what assimilation was," her parents worked very hard to assimilate into the U.S. As such, Martin only started connecting with her ancestral identity later in life. When she was two years old, her mother's leg had broken, so she would often read to her daughter. She and her mother would often take turns reading Shakespeare, Paul Revere's Ride, and Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven. She took piano lessons when she was eight, reciting a poem about a kitten at the rotunda of the Portland Art Museum and played the piano there. Martin transferred from Nathan Clifford School to St. Joseph’s Academy before entering high school.