Steve Martin "Born Standing Up" Signed First Edition, First Printing w/COA [Fine/Fine]

Personally signed by Steve Martin, one of the most well-known talents in entertainment

First Edition, First Printing. The most collectible state of the publication.

Scribner (November 2007). Steve Martin  "Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life". Personally signed by Steve Martin directly onto the title page of the book. Hardcover book with dust-jacket. First Edition, First Printing with full number line starting with "1" as required on the copyright page. Archival acid-free dust-jacket sleeve. Original price of $25 is not clipped. Includes bookseller issued COA. Fine/Fine.

Steve Martin has been making audiences laugh since the 1970s and is one of the most well-known talents in entertainment. His work has earned him an Academy Award®, five Grammy® awards, an Emmy®, the Mark Twain Award, and the Kennedy Center Honors.

As an author, Martin’s work includes the novel An Object of Beauty, the play Picasso at the Lapin Agile, a collection of comic pieces, Pure Drivel, a bestselling novella, Shopgirl, and his memoir Born Standing Up. Martin’s films include The Jerk, Planes, Trains & Automobiles, Roxanne, Parenthood, L.A. Story, Father of the Bride, and Bowfinger.

"Absolutely magnificent. One of the best books about comedy and being a comedian ever written." - Jerry Seinfeld, GQ

Born Standing Up

Steve Martin's riveting, mega-bestselling, beloved and highly acclaimed memoir of a life, a vocation, and an era—named one of the ten best nonfiction titles of the year by Time and Entertainment Weekly.

In the mid-seventies, Steve Martin exploded onto the comedy scene. By 1978 he was the biggest concert draw in the history of stand-up. In 1981 he quit forever. This book is, in his own words, the story of “why I did stand-up and why I walked away.”

Emmy and Grammy Award–winner, author of the acclaimed New York Times bestsellers Shopgirl and The Pleasure of My Company, and a regular contributor to The New Yorker, Martin has always been a writer. His memoir of his years in stand-up is candid, spectacularly amusing, and beautifully written.

At age ten Martin started his career at Disneyland, selling guidebooks in the newly opened theme park. In the decade that followed, he worked in the Disney magic shop and the Bird Cage Theatre at Knott’s Berry Farm, performing his first magic/comedy act a dozen times a week. The story of these years, during which he practiced and honed his craft, is moving and revelatory. The dedication to excellence and innovation is formed at an astonishingly early age and never wavers or wanes.

Martin illuminates the sacrifice, discipline, and originality that made him an icon and informs his work to this day. To be this good, to perform so frequently, was isolating and lonely. It took Martin decades to reconnect with his parents and sister, and he tells that story with great tenderness. Martin also paints a portrait of his times—the era of free love and protests against the war in Vietnam, the heady irreverence of The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour in the late sixties, and the transformative new voice of Saturday Night Live in the seventies.

Throughout the text, Martin has placed photographs, many never seen before. Born Standing Up is a superb testament to the sheer tenacity, focus, and daring of one of the greatest and most iconoclastic comedians of all time.

Steve Martin

Steve Martin is one of today's most talented performers. His huge successes as a film actor include such credits as ROXANNE, FATHER OF THE BRIDE, PARENTHOOD and THE SPANISH PRISONER. He has won Emmys for his television writing and two Grammys for comedy albums. In addition to the bestselling PURE DRIVEL, he has written several plays, including Picasso at the Lapin Agile and a highly acclaimed novel, SHOPGIRL. His work appears in The New Yorker and The New York Times.

Stephen Glenn Martin (born August 14, 1945) is an American comedian, actor, writer, producer, and musician. Known for his work in comedy films, television, and recording, he has received many accolades, including five Grammy Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and an Honorary Academy Award, in addition to nominations for two Tony Awards as well as eight Golden Globe Awards. He also received the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 2005, the Kennedy Center Honors in 2007, and an AFI Life Achievement Award in 2015. In 2004, Comedy Central ranked Martin at sixth place in a list of the 100 greatest stand-up comics. The Guardian named him one of the best actors never to have received an Academy Award nomination.

Martin first came to public notice as a writer for The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, for which he won a Primetime Emmy Award in 1969, and later as a frequent host on Saturday Night Live. He became one of the most popular American stand-up comedians during the 1970s, performing his brand of offbeat, absurdist comedy routines before sold-out theaters on national tours. He then starred in films such as The Jerk (1979), Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid (1982), The Man with Two Brains (1983), All of Me (1984), ¡Three Amigos! (1986), Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987), Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988), L.A. Story (1991), Bowfinger (1999) and Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003). He played family patriarchs in Parenthood (1989), the Father of the Bride films (1991–1995), Bringing Down the House (2003), and the Cheaper by the Dozen films (2003–2005).

Since 2015, Martin has embarked on several national comedy tours with fellow comedian Martin Short.[4] In 2018, they released their Netflix special An Evening You Will Forget for the Rest of Your Life which received four Primetime Emmy Award nominations. In 2021, he co-created and starred in his first television show, the Hulu comedy series Only Murders in the Building, alongside Short and Selena Gomez, for which he earned three Primetime Emmy Award nominations, two Screen Actors Guild Award nominations, a Golden Globe Award nomination, and a 2021 Peabody Award nomination. In 2022, Martin and Short co-hosted Saturday Night Live together with Gomez making an appearance.

Martin is also known for writing the books to the musical Bright Star (2016) and to the comedy Meteor Shower (2017), both of which premiered on Broadway; he co-wrote the music to the former. Martin has played banjo since an early age and has included music in his comedy routines from the beginning of his professional career. He has released several music albums and has performed with various bluegrass acts, including Earl Scruggs. He has won three Grammy Awards for his music.