Steve Martin: 'I Never Smoked Pot'

April 10, 2024

Apple TV's three-hour-plus Steve! (martin): A Documentary in 2 Pieces directed by Morgan Neville, offers a unique peek into the comedian's life.

Martin, now 78, was the anti-comic of the '70s until he became a bona fide movie star in the '80s. His antic persona included hopping around, making balloon animals, wearing an arrow on his head and occasionally blurting out his tagline, "Well, excuse me." It was novel in an era of other great stand-ups like Robin Williams, Richard Pryor, George Carlin, Robert Klein and Jerry Seinfeld, who appears in the series.

Born in Texas, Martin grew up in Garden Grove, about 45 minutes south of Los Angeles, where his career began at clubs. By the time he opened for Linda Rondstat at The Troubadour in 1971, Martin's oddball act had started taking off.

Despite growing up in the '60s, Martin eschewed the hippie lifestyle. He did grow his hair and beard out and donned cool threads, but Martin points out:

"If you didn't have long hair and smoke marijuana, you were an outcast. I never smoked pot. I couldn't take aspirin. I was so afraid of anxiety attacks."

However, an early girlfriend, Mitzi Trumbo, recalls:

"He had fun with my family. We would smoke a little pot and laugh and eat."

Episode 1 - "Then" - dives a little deeper in into Martin's drug humor. In one on-stage bit, he asks:

"Hey man, wanna smoke some shit?"

"No, I don't want any marijuana."

"Marijuana? This is shit!"

"I was pretty naive in those days. People would say, 'Hey, you want a snort?'"

"Yeah!" [he then literally makes a smorting noise]

Another joke, Martin says:

"I'm not into drugs anymore. I quit completely and I hate people who are still into it... I do take one drug for fun – it makes you small."

Fellow comic Martin Mull explains Martin's appeal to stoners:

"There was a generation of pot-smoking crazy people who could bend enough to get what you were talking about."