Andrea Martin Artist Bio

There is more than one singer to go by the name Andrea Martin: an R&B singer and a musical theatre actress and comedienne.

1) Andrea Martin (born Andrea Monica Martin on 14 April 1972; died 27 September 2021) was an American R&B singer-songwriter and record producer. She is remembered primarily as a songwriter and producer for famous artists like Toni Braxton, Monica, En Vogue, The Braxtons, Leela James, Leona Lewis and Jordin Sparks. She released one album of her own (The Best Of Me, 1998) as well as a few singles, including the #82 Billboard Hot 100 hit ‘Let Me Return The Favor’ and the #4 Billboard Dance hit ‘Share The Love’. She featured as back-up vocal on many albums. Some of her biggest hits as a producer were ‘Better In Time’ (Leona Lewis), ‘Don’t Let Go (Love)’ (En Vogue) and ‘Breathe’ (Blu Cantrell). In later years she working a lot with Melanie Fiona, for whom she wrote many of her hit singles including the Grammy nominated R&B #1 ‘It Kills Me’

2) Andrea Martin, a Tony Award-winning American actor and comedienne, was born on January 15, 1947 in Portland, Maine, USA. She made her Broadway debut in the musical My Favorite Year, for which she won the Tony Award, Theatre World Award, and Drama Desk Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical. Additional Broadway credits include Candide (1997) and Oklahoma! (2002)—both of which brought her Tony nominations—and Fiddler on the Roof (2005). She returned to Broadway as Frau Blucher in Mel Brook’s musical adaptation of Young Frankenstein in late 2007 and won another Tony in 2013 for Pippin.

Star Trek fans may recognize her as one of two actresses to play Ishka, Quark’s iconoclastic mother on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

Martin won two Emmy Awards for Outstanding Writing in a Variety or Music Program in 1982 and 1983 for her work on popular Canadian sketch comedy show SCTV. She has done considerable voice work in such animated productions as Jimmy Neutron, The Simpsons (as Apu’s mother), and Earthworm Jim, as well as the Disney Channel’s Kim Possible and Brother Bear 2.

Martin’s many screen credits include Wag the Dog, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, The Producers, and the independent smash hit, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, in which she portrayed Aunt Voula, a role she reprised in the short-lived small-screen adaptation. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.