Martin was born to a Polish Jewish family in Gródek, Poland, (now Horodok, Ukraine).

[1] Recorded as Izak and Sara Rosenblat and infant son Marcus, they boarded the steamship New Rochelle at Danzig, which was then a Free City under the League of Nations; the ship sailed on August 29, 1920, and arrived at the Port of New York on September 18.

Martin spoke Polish, Yiddish, and some Russian before learning English and later added French, Spanish, and Italian.

[1][2] Despite academic training in business, instruction, and law, Martin chose a career in acting.

He was partners in a comedy team with Bernie West for several years, then appeared on many radio and live TV broadcasts, including playing Wyatt Earp in the January 20, 1952 episode of The Gabby Hayes Show.

[4] Martin's first film was the George Pal 1955 production Conquest of Space, followed by a brief but memorable appearance in The Colossus of New York (1958), as the scientist father of Charles Herbert.

Soon after, he caught the eye of Blake Edwards, who cast him in a number of widely varied roles: as Sal in the 1959 Peter Gunn[5] episode "The Fuse"; his breakout role as comic sidekick Andamo in the 1959 CBS drama series Mr. Lucky, asthmatic kidnapper Red Lynch in the 1962 thriller Experiment in Terror (for which he was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture), culminating with a role in The Great Race, as the smoothly villainous Baron Rolfe Von Stuppe.

[4] The Artemus Gordon character was a master gadgeteer and disguise artist, and these attributes fitted Martin perfectly.

In 1970, Martin portrayed Alexander Hamilton in the NBC television special Swing Out, Sweet Land, hosted by John Wayne.

[10] He made a guest appearance on Barnaby Jones in 1974,[11] and also lent his voice to an episode of Wait Till Your Father Gets Home later that year.