Born in New York City, Martin began his career in the mid-1960s and soon appeared in prominent films such as Black Like Me, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, and Rosemary's Baby.

[4] He then had small roles in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967) (as Frankie, whose car is accidentally struck by Spencer Tracy's character Matt Drayton)[5] and Rosemary's Baby (1968) (as Diego, the elevator operator).

[6] Later movies of D'Urville Martin are of the blaxploitation genre, starting with The Legend of Nigger Charley in 1972 and continuing throughout the decade until he appeared in The Bear in 1983.

He played Sonny in the film Hammer (1972),[citation needed] Reverend Rufus in Black Caesar (1973) and its sequel Hell Up in Harlem (also 1973), and the pimp in The Get-Man (a.k.a.

Boyd notes the humor in Moore carrying himself off as a sex symbol "to bed the fine-ass women who can't keep their hands off him.”[7]