[2] After high school, he volunteered to serve in the U.S. Army, became a paratrooper with the 11th Airborne Division and was awarded a Purple Heart for injuries received during World War II.

[3][4] He won the off-Broadway best actor award for his performance in Outside the Door and changed his name to Martin Brooks, following the advice of producer Richard Rodgers.

[1][2] In 1959, Brooks starred in Saul Levitt's hit play The Andersonville Trial with Brian Donlevy and Charles Durning.

[5] Brooks was also in John Steinbeck's Burning Bright as Victor with Kent Smith as Joe Saul, Barbara Bel Geddes as Mordeen, and Howard Da Silva as Friend Ed[6][7][8][9] which he had adapted from his 1950 novel of the same name.

[11] In the fall of 1977, Brooks and Richard Anderson (as Oscar Goldman) became the first known actors to portray the same characters as regulars simultaneously on two different networks.

His other television roles include in Mike Snow in Hunter, Arthur Bradshaw in General Hospital,[1] Car 54, Where Are You?, Gunsmoke (“The Lure”-1967), Mission: Impossible, Night Gallery, Love, American Style, The Mod Squad,[11] and ten appearances as Edgar Randolph in the prime-time soap opera Dallas, playing a pivotal role in a story arc involving J.R.