Steve Martin’s Early Comedy Career in Photos

Beginning in the mid-1970s, Martin began appearing frequently on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. Martin’s oddball comedy and musical accompaniments were a welcome reprieve for audiences. Despite making frequent, popular appearances on Carson’s show, Martin told Conan O’Brien it wasn’t until he’d made numerous appearances that he’d begun to garner some sort of public recognition.

A banjo enthusiast since first picking up the instrument at 17 years-old, Martin began integrating his love for the banjo into his comedy act early in his career. Initially a tongue-in-cheek accompaniment to Martin’s outlandish stand-up routine, the comedian later began taking his career as a musician more seriously, performing with various esteemed bluegrass acts and even winning a Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album in 2009.

Coinciding with a popular touring exhibit featuring artifacts from the tomb of Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun, Martin first performed his iconic novelty song “King Tut” during an appearance on Saturday Night Live in 1978. An instant hit, the single sold more than one million copies and peaked at number 17 on the Billboard Hot 100, an impressive accomplishment for a novelty comedy song.

As Martin’s meteoric rise in popularity continued, venues for his stand-up routine had to accommodate more and more fans, eventually leading to Martin performing for massive audiences in stadiums across the country. Despite his act’s enormous popularity, Martin felt he’d conceptually exhausted his routine and quit performing his stand-up act in 1981. Following a 35-year hiatus, Martin returned to stand-up in 2016, performing a 10-minute set opening for comedian Jerry Seinfeld. He also released a Netflix special in 2018 with his frequent co-star and off-screen friend Martin Short.