Martin, Jesse L. 1969–

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Jesse L. Martin 1969–

Actor

Jesse L. Martin’s television roles have ranged from detectives to doctors, but the towering, well-built actor has been celebrated as the one of the medium’s newest romantic leads. Martin began his career on Broadway, and has appeared on Ally McBeal and Law & Order. In 1999 he was named “Sexiest Newcomer” by People magazine in its annual “Sexiest Man Alive” issue. “Women do come up to me, and they tell me what they think!” Martin admitted to the magazine, “I’ve gotten great compliments on my eyes and my smile. But I don’t see myself as sexy.”

Martin was born on January 18, 1969, in Rocky Mount, Virginia, a small burg deep inside the Blue Ridge Mountains. His father was a truck driver, and his mother eventually became a career counselor at a local college, but the pair divorced when he was still young and Martin and his mother moved to Buffalo, New York. He was just nine at the time, and was teased at school because of his Southern accent. Being bused to an integrated school only added to his difficulties in adjusting to his new life. “It’s always tough when you’re a kid and you feel different from everybody else and you’re picked on because of it,” he told In Style. “But I got over it and learned to blend and I worked very hard to get rid of my accent.”

The acting bug bit Martin when he was cast in his first play during his fourth-grade year. The production was The Golden Goose, and he was “the pastor, which I associated with a brim-stone-and-fire, Southern Baptist sort of preacher, so that’s the way I played it,” he told Entertainment Weekly. “None of the white kids there had ever seen anything like that, and everyone was impressed, thought it was very funny. I got so much positive feedback, I knew I was on my way to being a performer.”

Still, in his teens Martin was a self-professed nerd and shy despite his years in a performing-arts program for gifted students. At 16, he asked a girl on a date—for the first time—and planned to meet her at the movies to see The Color Purple, but she stood him up. After finishing high school, he attended New York University, where he majored in theater but did not graduate. “When I was accepted, my mother cried because she knew we couldn’t afford it,” he revealed to Cosmopolitan. “But I worked four or five jobs at a time to stay there. Then I had to leave because school was interfering with work—and I couldn’t afford not to work.” Martin revealed in the same interview that the most undignified job from these years he held was at a department store offering perfume spritzes to shoppers.

At a Glance…

Born on January 18,1969, in Rocky Mount, VA; son of a truck driver and a college career counselor. Education: Studied theater at New York University.

Career: Actor. Began career off-Broadway; appeared in the original cast of Rent, 1996; television shows: 413 Hope St, 1997; Ally McBeal, 1998; Law & Order 1999-.

Addresses: Home —New York City. Office — c/o Law and Order Production Office, Pier 62, Hudson River at W. 23rd St., New York, NY 10011.

Martin’s big break came, unbeknownst to him at the time, when he was cast in the original company of Rent in 1996. The play, a musical based on the 1896 Puccini opera La Boheme, opened to overwhelmingly positive reviews—a success made all the more poignant by the fact that its creator, Jonathan Larson, died suddenly just before opening night. Rent is set in modern-day New York City, in its own bohemian East Village quarter, and Martin was cast as Tom Collins, a character whose boyfriend is a transvestite. “Although characters appear and disappear, seemingly at will, memorable impressions are made by” Martin and several castmates, noted Back Stage critic David A. Rosenberg. Other characters include a woman dying of AIDS and those struggling with drug additions. Martin reprised his role on the London stage in 1998, which prompted Variety critic Matt Wolf to state that “Martin impresses with a sincerity that never once becomes stolid: His reprise of the wrenching ‘I’II Cover You’ emerges tearfully, from someplace within.”

Though Martin would later segue successfully into television, he admitted to harboring a certain passion for the theater. “There’s something exciting about being onstage, knowing anything could go wrong.” he told In Style. In 1997 he was offered a lead role on a new hour-long drama series created and produced by Damon Wayans, 413 Hope St. The show was set at a New York City teen crisis center, where Martin’s character, Antonio, served as a staff psychologist. He also appeared in one episode of the X-Files as a Negro Baseball League star who was actually an alien. But Martin’s more memorable television credit came when he was offered a recurring guest role on the hit Fox-TV show Ally McBeal. He played Dr. Greg Butters, a paramour of the star for a few episodes. Reportedly the actress Michelle Pfeiffer, wife of Ally McBeal creative force David E. Kelley, had seen Martin in Rent and recommended him for a guest spot on the show. The interracial romance between the pair attracted some hate mail, but the issue was deliberately skirted in the scripts. “Calista [Flockhart as the show’s star] and I loved that our characters never discussed race,” he told Cosmopolitan.

In 1999 Martin replaced outgoing Benjamin Bratt on the hit television drama Law & Order. He was cast as Detective Ed Green, a new character. Martin’s Green seems unflappable, but is in reality a brooder with a possible gambling problem. Martin had already auditioned for several other guest roles on critically acclaimed show, but was usually offered unsavory criminal parts that were not much of a challenge professionally. The new part gave Martin a chance to stretch his talents as a dramatic actor. “Green is not a predictable guy,” he told Entertainment Weekly. “There’s not a lot about him that I know,” a secrecy that the show’s producers fostered to maintain a sense of realism.

The longer contract with Law & Order meant that Martin had to move from Los Angeles to New York City, a change that pleased him immensely. He has maintained his six feet, two inch physique with a regiment of yoga and calisthenics. The actor has often been told that he resembles late soul singer Marvin Gaye, and has said that his dream project would be the starring role in a film biography about the troubled Motown star, slain by his own father in 1984. Meanwhile, he has claimed he is eager to rid himself of the “eligible bachelor” tag, as he told In Style. “Me, I don’t want to be eligible,” Martin declared in In Style. “I want to be one of those guys that’s completely hooked up and can’t be considered a bachelor.”