Granddaughter of genocide survivors from Maine who became comedy royalty — SCTV's Edith Prickley, two Tony Awards twenty years apart, and the most beloved movie aunt on Earth.
Andrea Martin, born in 1947 in Portland, Maine, to an Armenian-American family, is one of the funniest performers North America has ever produced — a two-time Tony Award winner, multiple Emmy winner, and comedy royalty from the legendary SCTV.
Her grandparents fled the Armenian Genocide; their granddaughter became a comedy institution. On SCTV she created the immortal Edith Prickley — leopard print, glasses, and a laugh that could level a building — alongside a gallery of characters that made her a cornerstone of the show's golden cast with John Candy, Catherine O'Hara, and Eugene Levy.
On Broadway she won Tony Awards for My Favorite Year (1993) and, twenty years later, for her show-stopping trapeze turn in Pippin (2013). To film audiences worldwide she is Aunt Voula in My Big Fat Greek Wedding — and to Armenians, one of our own who told the world about it in her memoir Lady Parts.
Every family has an Aunt Voula. Ours happens to be Armenian, from Maine, with two Tonys.
— On Andrea MartinMartin has spoken and written proudly of her Armenian heritage and the survivor grandparents behind her story. Five decades in, she remains what SCTV made her: proof that fearless, physical, brilliant comedy has an Armenian accent too.
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