Steve Martin

Steve Martin loves being in love.So comedy's foremost funnyman wrote "L.A. Story," starring himself and the woman he's crazy about -- his wife, Victoria Tennant."

If you didn't see the first Steve Martin Pink Panther film, you may wonder when Inspector Clouseau became so smarmy and sentimental. Audiences loved Peter Sellers' Clouseau for being a slapstick loser who struggles to become a winner and often wounds himself in the process. Martin plays him more like a brilliant eccentric who leaves embarrassment and chaos in his wake but comes out smelling like a prom-night carnation, complete with his very own prom queen (Emily Mortimer). Sellers' Clouseau was at his best as a figure of wounded dignity who solved crimes by accident, if at all. Martin's Clouseau is gifted enough to earn the love of a good woman, the loyalty of a sane, robust sidekick (Jean Reno)

If you didn't see the first Steve Martin Pink Panther film, you may wonder when Inspector Clouseau became so smarmy and sentimental. Audiences loved Peter Sellers' Clouseau for being a slapstick loser who struggles to become a winner and often wounds himself in the process. Martin plays him more like a brilliant eccentric who leaves embarrassment and chaos in his wake but comes out smelling like a prom-night carnation, complete with his very own prom queen (Emily Mortimer). Sellers' Clouseau was at his best as a figure of wounded dignity who solved crimes by accident, if at all. Martin's Clouseau is gifted enough to earn the love of a good woman, the loyalty of a sane, robust sidekick (Jean Reno)

Parental Advisory: The set's turrets and towers are reminiscent of a fairy tale. The theme music will set many members of the audience to humming a beloved nursery rhyme. And the title seems tailor-made to titillate the curiosity of 6-year-olds. But, moms and dads, leave Junior at home. Nothing in the production of The Underpants currently running at the Olney Theatre Center is even remotely childlike. No, this 1911 German sex farce (receiving a modern adaptation by that wild-and-crazy guy, Steve Martin)

All fathers must deal with the ultimate broken heart which will, sooner or later, be administered by their daughters. That melancholy destiny is chronicled in "Father of the Bride."Yet no matter how universal a chord it may sound in those of us lucky enough to have little girls, the movie itself is so insipidly mild it hardly exists. A remake of a storied 1950 Vincente Minnelli production -- with the legendary slow-burner Spencer Tracy and the then-nubile Elizabeth Taylor -- it offers an antic Steve Martin in the title role.

Who would have thought that Steve Martin -- the comedian with the arrow through his head, the original wild and crazy guy -- would write a play with the serious line: "This is the night the Earth fell quiet and listened to a conversation," and that he would mean it?Well, OK. Maybe he didn't think the entire Earth would listen. But Martin's play, "Picasso at the Lapin Agile," has won the attention of theater audiences across the country. And, as the production at the Mechanic Theatre proves, that attention is deserved.

The pre-interview, I thought, was going swimmingly. I sensed Steve Martin was only a phone call away. Could almost hear Martin himself breathing on the phone.(Steve Martin - the comedian, actor, playwright, and now author of "Pure Drivel," a best-selling collection of his New Yorker essays.(Steve Martin, the King Tut nut, banjo-playing, I-was-born-a-poor-black-child, I'm-just-a-wild-and-crazy-guy guy.(Steve Martin, the opening act for the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band circa 1970.)When anonymous newspaper writers attempt to contact famous non-newspaper writers, they have to dunk their pride in the festering vat that is public relations.

"Father of the Bride: Part II" is less a movie than a series of blackout sketches depicting how hard pregnancy is on men. It's about a guy about to become a father and a grandfather simultaneously, though not with the same woman, thank God.It helps enormously -- in fact it is the whole movie -- that the man in question is Steve Martin as we know and love him the best: loose-jointed, dithery, stumblingly vulnerable and silly, self-deluding, as close to an Everydad as anyone could imagine.The film follows on the 1991 success "Father of the Bride," which in turn traces its lineage back to the early '50s film with Spencer Tracy, Joan Bennett and a youngster named Elizabeth Taylor.

'Housesitter'Starring Steve Martin and Goldie Hawn.Directed by Frank Oz.Released by Universal.Rated PG.***Do us all a favor and don't tell Dan Quayle about "Housesitter."It's not exactly the "family values" picture of the year. In fact, its ultimate message to a concerned America is: When in doubt, tell a lie. If caught, tell another one. If you tell enough of them, you'll get what you want. (Only a Hollywood producer could believe that, by the way, and indeed, a Hollywood producer thought the story up.)

LOOK FOR FULL REVIEWS IN TOMORROW'S MOVIES TODAY SECTION Chicken Little This latest animated effort from Disney, the first since the studio abandoned traditional in favor of computer animation, is the tale of a socially outcast chicken with a credibility problem - no one, not even his dad, believes him when he insists the sky is falling. G. Jarhead Sam Mendes (American Beauty) directs Jake Gyllenhaal as a Marine serving in the Mideast during the first war with Iraq. R. MirrorMask A young girl searches for a mask that will show her the way home in this fantasy written by famed DC Comics storyteller Neil Gaiman.

Like many a movie lover and even some Hollywood insiders, Ron Shelton, a writer-director of classic sports comedies, found himself going through comedy withdrawal last fall and winter, when the studios left farce off their schedules and stuffed them instead with protest films and message movies. "Shouldn't we be desperate for laughs when it's dark and gloomy?" Shelton asks, over the phone from sunny Ojai, Calif. "Shouldn't we want comedy in the winter? And who ever said that serious movies can't have a sense of humor?"

Capping a career marked by disability, a triumphant comeback and even an Oscar nomination, Baltimore pianist Leon Fleisher proudly joined a coterie of pop-culture figures this weekend in accepting the Kennedy Center Honors. The Peabody Conservatory faculty member, who spent nearly four decades playing a left-hand-only repertoire because of a neurological disorder, was feted alongside filmmaker Martin Scorsese, singer Diana Ross, comedian Steve Martin and singer-songwriter Brian Wilson.

CONVERSATIONS WITH WOODY ALLEN Eric Lax Knopf / 416 pages / $30 Compiled over 36 years of interviews, conversations and experiences one could only glean from gaining Allen's confidence and respect, Conversations is essential reading for aspiring filmmakers and those who wish to eventually put finger to keyboard in hopes of telling a story, but it is no less intriguing for simple cinephiles. Broken into eight sections - "The Idea," "Writing It," "Casting, Actors and Acting," "Shooting, Sets, Locations," "Directing," "Editing," "Scoring" and "The Career" - Conversations details not only the creative process but also the psychic burden of the divide between comedy and drama.

With the Christmas season just around the corner, here are some recently published children's books that come highly recommended: THE ALPHABET FROM A TO Y WITH BONUS LETTER Z! Steve Martin and Roz Chast Flying Dolphin / 64 pages / $17.95/ Ages 9 - 12 The ABCs have never had it so good. Created by two of today's wittiest, most imaginative minds, The Alphabet from A to Y with Bonus Letter Z! is a sheer delight from A to Z. In 26 alliterative couplets, Steve Martin conjures up much more than mere apples and zebras.

On May 22, 2007, RONALD LEE MARTIN, 60, of Summerville, SC, widower of Barbara. Mr. Martin was born December 31, 1946 in Princeton, WV, son of the late George and Eva Lockhart Martin. He attended schools in Baltimore. He was a veteran of the USAF serving in the Vietnam War and Desert Storm. He was a member of the American Bonsai Society. He was a Bonsai Instructor and owner of Tokonoma Bonsai Nursery. Surviving are two daughters, Lesa Haney (Kevin) of The Colony, TX Kathy Souza (Brenden)

The folks at the Chesapeake Arts Center are starting 2007 with what they describe as "the best theater deal in town": four shows for $38 for center members and $42 for everyone else. The bargain prices, available through Jan. 21, earn a quick return on investment. The first show, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, opens tomorrow and closes Jan. 21. It will be followed in March by Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie, a sophisticated comedy by comedian Steve Martin in June and an original show in August, to be chosen from submissions to the 26th annual Baltimore Playwrights Festival.

Steve Martin ties himself into a Gordian knot trying to play Inspector Clouseau in Shawn Levy's The Pink Panther. He's the latest gifted comic actor to pale to near-invisibility before the memory of Peter Sellers, who created the French detective whose only genius is for idiocy. Hardly anyone noticed that the great Alan Arkin played the title role of Bud Yorkin's Inspector Clouseau (1968). And in 1983, when the director of all Sellers' Clouseau movies, Blake Edwards, introduced a promising light comedian named Ted Wass as Clouseau's American successor, the title proved all too prescient - The Curse of the Pink Panther.

The Orioles today traded third baseman Craig Worthington and minor-league pitcher Tom Martin to the San Diego Padres for two minor leaguers, pitcher Jim Lewis and outfielder Steve Martin.Worthington, who was named Rookie Player of the Year by The Sporting News after a 1989 performance that included 15 home runs and 70 RBI, had slipped out of favor after a lackluster performance in 1990. He opened 1991 on the major league roster, but spent most of the season with the Class AAA Rochester Red Wings rehabilitating a hamstring strain.

Steve Martin ties himself into a Gordian knot trying to play Inspector Clouseau in Shawn Levy's The Pink Panther. He's the latest gifted comic actor to pale to near-invisibility before the memory of Peter Sellers, who created the French detective whose only genius is for idiocy. Hardly anyone noticed that the great Alan Arkin played the title role of Bud Yorkin's Inspector Clouseau (1968). And in 1983, when the director of all Sellers' Clouseau movies, Blake Edwards, introduced a promising light comedian named Ted Wass as Clouseau's American successor, the title proved all too prescient - The Curse of the Pink Panther.

PBS tonight offers three hours of programs celebrating standout TV comedians ranging from Milton Berle to Steve Martin. The lineup of comics and writers interviewed and shown in performance is dazzling: Larry David, Carl Reiner, Lily Tomlin and Sid Caesar. Yet, for all the comedic talent onscreen, it is an evening surprisingly devoid of laughs. Worse yet, by the standards of PBS, viewers are not likely to come away from the programs much enlightened about the role of comedy in American life.