Born Ramón Gerardo Antonio Estévez on August 3, 1940, he adopted a different professional name and is known for his roles in “The Subject Was Roses” and “Badlands.”
With a striking acting range, the actor achieved wide recognition in 1979 when he played the lead role of Captain Benjamin Willard in “Apocalypse Now.”
As a multiple Emmy, SAG, and Golden Globe Award winner, he is one of America’s most celebrated, accomplished, and colorful actors.
Child of Immigrants Dreaming to Be an Actor
This mysterious actor was born to an Irish mother, Mary-Ann Phelan, and a Spanish father, Francisco Estévez Martínez. His parents had met in Ohio when they were both attending citizenship school.
Born in Dayton, Ohio, he is one of ten children. At birth, a pair of forceps crushed his left shoulder and left his left arm paralyzed for a long time, causing him to have limited lateral movement of his left arm.
When growing up, he didn’t see his family as poor because everyone they knew lived like them. Before his 11th birthday, he lost his mother, and even though it was tough for him, it made him very strong, tolerant, and appreciative of his father.
As he was around six or seven years old, he started going to the movies, and gradually, it dawned on Martin that he was going to be an actor.
While going to high school, he worked as a caddy for nine years at a private golf club in Dayton, Ohio. He had great experiences there and was able to help his father.
The actor in question is Martin Sheen. He wasn’t interested in anything other than the dramatics club, where he did a lot of plays in high school. Father Alfred Drapp became his mentor and loaned Sheen the money he needed to go to New York.
The first time Martin stepped on stage was as a freshman when he played the role of a yeoman court stenographer in “The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial” by Herman Wouk. After moving to New York in his early 20s, he realized his name wasn’t helpful as he tried to make it as an actor. People couldn’t pronounce it, and so he decided to change it.
For a new stage name, he took the names of two people he found inspirational: one was Robert Dale Martin, a casting director at CBS, and the other, Fulton J Sheen, the American archbishop. However, he still retained his birth name on his ID.
Meeting the Love of His Life
Martin is married to Janet Sheen, born July 8, 1944, in Ohio, as Janet Elizabeth Templeton. She is an actress with two acting credits to her name and a producer. Janet is known for “The Way,” “Kennedy,” and “Beverly Hills Brats.”
Martin and Janet met in the winter of 1960 after Janet arrived in New York from Ohio. She was the only daughter of an unwed mother and had spent her first six years with her grandparents in Kentucky.
Janet then moved to Cleveland, where she attended public schools before gaining two university scholarships. After they had started dating, they were still struggling to make ends meet when Janet got pregnant with their first son, Emilio.
They were young when they got married on December 23, 1961. It was a fifteen-minute ceremony at the altar of the church of St. Stephen. Their wedding was sandwiched between an 8 a.m. Mass and a funeral.
Afterward, they had an impromptu breakfast reception at a Jewish deli in the neighborhood with a dozen of friends from the Living Theatre. The day couldn’t have been more perfect for the couple.
Struggling to Make Ends Meet
Their financial struggles continued, and they were evicted from their home. They packed what they could fill in a suitcase and went to live with Martin’s father and brothers.
He later found a cheap apartment and lived in the same building Paul Newman once rented. For two years, the building became their home. When they had their second son, Ramón, the baby came so fast that they didn’t have time to go to the hospital and had to deliver their baby alone.
They had a complicated delivery as the baby got stuck in the birth canal, and Janet hemorrhaged. Martin called for an ambulance, but the baby arrived first.
Martin thought they would have twins until Janet corrected him when the placenta was about to come out. Thankfully, both mother and son were pronounced fine by the time they got to the hospital.
Scariest Woman but the Best Wife
While filming his Vietnam movie “Apocalypse Now” in the Philippines, Martin became skinny and suffered a heart attack, but his wife helped him get grounded. After the heart attack, he was airlifted to Makati Medical Center in Manila. As he was being raced down the corridor in a gurney, Janet whispered to him, saying it’s only a movie.
When he realized she was right, he started to recover, and the bond they formed on that day solidified their marriage. He had survived the heart attack mental part, and Janet was helping him heal psychically.
The heart attack took a toll on Martin. He confessed ” I completely fell apart. My spirit was exposed. I cried and cried. I turned gray- my eyes, my beard, all gray.” His wife was beside him through it all and slept on the floor while he was in intensive care.
However, Martin knew he needed to do a lot of work to get out this, and part of that was taking responsibility for the part he played in his health complications.
In December 2015, when he underwent quadruple-bypass heart surgery, his wife was there trying to make him laugh. She was always telling him not to take himself so seriously. When he was a struggling alcoholic and troubled in many areas, his wife had her work cut out for her. However, he didn’t get sober until ten years after his first heart attack.
Martin and Janet celebrated their 60th anniversary during COVID-19. When he was asked how he had managed to stay married to the same woman for so long. He said, “I was fortunate enough to marry the scariest woman I’d ever met. She did not lie. It was impossible.”
The actor always appreciated his wife’s honesty and believed that it was what had kept him grounded and allowed for their marriage to last 61 years. On top of the honesty, the family always tried their best to stay together. Whenever Martin was shooting away from home the children knew they would be pulled out of school.
For him, he had never met a person with more integrity in his life. It had taken him a long time to be as even and direct as she is because he honestly couldn’t keep up with her. He said
“And that’s the relationship. I honestly don’t have a clue who she is because when I get to the point where I’ve caught up with her, she’s gone.”
Supportive Dad to Kids Who Followed His Footsteps
Martin is a loving and supportive father to Emilio, Ramón, Carlos (Charlie Sheen), and Renée. Emilio is a film director, screenwriter, and producer who famously became part of the informal mid-1980s “Brat Pack.”
Ramón is an actor and theater director who has appeared in several movies in the 1980s and 1990s, like “Cadence,” “A State of Emergency,” and more. Carlos, popularly known as Charlie, is also an actor known for his roles in “Platoon,” co-starred with his father in “Wall Street” and starred in the CBS sitcom “Two and a Half Men” making him the highest-paid actor in TV.
His last child, Renée, is an actress and screenwriter who first started in 1986 in “Babies Having Babies.” She has also starred in “Shattered Spirits” and “Heathers.”
Martin never imagined his children would follow in his footsteps. He was surprised when he saw Emilio on the movie set, where he discovered his son’s talent. He also ensured they didn’t get any roles by asking for favors.