Steve Martin’s Relationships: From Bernadette Peters to Low-Key Love With Anne Stringfield
From flings with iconic stars to fatherhood at 67, his love life is just as quirky as his comedy
As a comedian, actor, writer and musician, Steve Martin is truly multitalented, and throughout a five-decade career, the white-haired comedy legend has frequently collaborated with his real-life love interests.
Though not an original cast member, Martin became one of the most frequent guest hosts on Saturday Night Live, developing a longtime creative bond with Saturday Night Live creator Lorne Michaels, and Martin’s offscreen relationships are just as “wild and crazy” as his joyfully absurd standup and wide-ranging movie career.
We’re taking a look at the most important women in the hilarious star’s life, from the early girlfriends who helped define his singular aesthetic to his delightful screen partnerships with Bernadette Peters and Victoria Tennant to his low-key current marriage to former New Yorker staffer Anne Stringfield.
How Steve Martin’s early girlfriends inspired his singular comedy
Steve Martin got his start as a writer for The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour in 1967. The then-unknown comedian had previously dated Nina Goldblatt, who was a dancer on the sketch comedy show, and she recommended Martin to the show’s head writer, who hired him and gave him his big break.
Martin then dated writer and It Girl Eve Babitz, who helped create his indelible onstage image when she told him he should wear a crisp white suit while performing his stand-up act.
Martin was also rumored to have had flings with ’70s icons like the Carpenters’ Karen Carpenter, Maureen McCormick (better known as Marcia Brady from The Brady Bunch) and Linda Ronstadt (who he found so intimidating that she sassily asked him, “Steve, do you often date girls and not try to sleep with them?” during one of their dates).
Steve Martin and Bernadette Peters: The quirky late-’70s power couple
Martin and actress, singer and Broadway star Bernadette Peters began dating in 1977. Their relationship was immortalized in the 1979 comedy The Jerk, which gave Martin the first of his many leading roles and featured Peters as his love interest. Martin wrote Peters’ role specifically for her, and their onscreen chemistry was real.
Martin and Peters then costarred in the stylized 1981 musical Pennies From Heaven, but audiences didn’t like seeing the couple in a darker, less funny film, and it failed at the box office. They broke up in 1982.
While Martin was dating Peters, he was rapidly becoming an A-lister, and he made a point of keeping his personal life private. At the time, he told Rolling Stone that he felt like she could truly understand his unique position, explaining, “I liked her because she was independent. I respected her for it, and I knew it wasn’t going to be, you know, ‘Oh, Steve, what are we going to do now? Where’re you going?’ She was in show business, we could talk.”
After breaking up with Peters, Martin was briefly rumored to be dating Mary Tyler Moore.
Inside Steve Martin’s marriage to Victoria Tennant
Steve Martin met his first wife, British actress Victoria Tennant, when they costarred in the slapstick 1984 comedy All of Me. The couple married in 1986 and shared the screen again in the 1991 rom-com L.A. Story before they divorced in 1994.
In the 2024 documentary, Steve! (Martin): A Documentary in Two Pieces, Martin reflected on his first marriage, saying, “When I married Victoria Tennant, I liked her a lot. She was very funny, very amusing, smart and English. It was a relationship that just kind of defaulted into a romance. And also a part of it was I guess I should get married, which is not a good reason. There’s just no way to force it.”
Steve Martin’s post-divorce relationships
After his divorce, Martin dated Anne Heche, who had a bit part in his 1994 movie A Simple Twist of Fate, until 1997. Heather Graham’s character in the 1999 satire Bowfinger, which he wrote and starred in, is widely believed to have been based on the late actress.
In the late ’90s, Martin was linked to photographer Cindy Sherman. While the relationship didn’t last, he has a number of her works in his prolific art collection and has paid tribute to her at art-world galas.
There was then speculation that Martin was dating Helena Bonham Carter, his costar in the 2001 film Novocaine, and he was later rumored to be seeing Sex and the City star Kristin Davis, but she denied that they were ever an item.
Who is Steve Martin’s wife, Anne Stringfield?
Steve Martin had a rom-com worthy meet-cute with his current wife, Anne Stringfield. In the ’00s, she was working as a fact checker at The New Yorker and just so happened to be checking one of his comedy pieces for the esteemed publication, leading them to have many conversations. As Martin recalled in an AARP interview, “We talked on the phone for a year before we even met.”
Once Martin and Stringfield met in person, they instantly hit it off, and in 2007, they had a surprise wedding at their home in Los Angeles, telling guests it was just a party.
Martin, who famously played a frazzled dad in Father of the Bride, became a father in real life at 67 in 2012, when their daughter was born. When asked about his experience of becoming a first-time dad later in life, Martin said it was “fantastic,” telling the AARP, “I think if I’d had a child earlier, I would have been a lousy father because I would have misplaced my attention on my career.”
Why Steve Martin keeps his home life so private
Martin and Stringfield keep a fairly low profile. Unlike his previous partners, she’s not in the entertainment industry, though she made cameo appearances in two episodes of Only Murders in the Building, playing Tina Fey’s lookalike assistant. (Martin stars alongside longtime friend and frequent collaborator Martin Short in the hit series.) Fey had previously pointed out their resemblance, calling her “a younger, thinner, smarter version of me,” when Martin received the American Film Institute’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2015.
Martin has called Stringfield the person who “makes it all possible,” saying, “She has one of the most important qualities a person can have, and that’s kindness.” In his documentary, he got emotional about his wife and daughter, and said, “My life is completely backwards. I worked very hard early on, and then have a happy marriage and a fantastic child at this age. And I love it.” Martin has always embraced the weird and wacky in life, so it’s no surprise that he’s had a backwards path to personal contentment.
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