Martin Fitzgerald Lawrence

Martin Fitzgerald Lawrence was born on April 16, 1965, in Frankfurt, West Germany, the fourth of six children of U.S. Army serviceman John Lawrence and department-store cashier Chlora. The family moved to Landover, Maryland, when he was seven, and his parents divorced soon after. He attended Eleanor Roosevelt High School in Greenbelt, where he showed early talent as an amateur boxer in the Golden Gloves before a serious injury redirected him toward stand-up comedy.

Lawrence broke through at New York's Improv in 1987, won an appearance on Star Search, and landed the role of Maurice Warfield on the sitcom What's Happening Now!!. Spike Lee cast him in Do the Right Thing (1989) and House Party (1990) followed. From 1992 he hosted HBO's Def Comedy Jam, then created and starred in the Fox sitcom Martin, which ran for five seasons and made him a Saturday-night fixture across the United States.

His film career stretched into wide-release comedy with Bad Boys (1995) opposite Will Smith, and continued through Nothing to Lose (1997), Life (1999), Big Momma's House (2000) and its sequels, Wild Hogs (2007), and Bad Boys for Life (2020). He has also produced television including Martin Lawrence Presents 1st Amendment Stand-Up.

Lawrence has been married twice — to Patricia Southall from 1995 to 1997 and to Shamicka Gibbs from 2010 to 2012 — and is father to three daughters. He survived a 1999 collapse from heat exhaustion while jogging in heavy clothing, after which he largely curtailed live touring before returning to stand-up in 2016.

The name Martin derives from the Latin Martinus, of Mars, the Roman god of war, carrying the sense warrior or dedicated to Mars. A solidly masculine name carried by saints, preachers, and entertainers alike, it fits a comedian whose stage presence has always been combative and full of motion.