Little A Goes A Long Way!

Wendy Chapman

    The question Santa Barbara's A Martinez is asked most often is what does the A stand for?  Christened Adolph Larrue Martinez junior after his father and grandfather, A soon became known as Little A, A Bone and Model A.  Those nicknames eventually became simply A, which he feels most comfortable with.

    Mexican/American, A was born in California on September 27, 1948.  He's the eldest in a family of six and his father is a retired high school principal.  Being the eldest brother constantly got young A into trouble.  "My younger brothers always told their adversaries they had a big brother who could beat up their big brother and I felt obligated," he says with a laugh.

    A won a scholarship to UCLA and originally planned to study political science but when he discovered he would have to read 11 books before the classes began, where to enter the theatre department he would only have to write a 500-word autobiography, he changed majors!

    He immediately discovered that he had done the right thing.  After appearing in 15 college productions, he won his first professional role in Born Wild, and in 1972 he appeared opposite John Wayne in The Cowboys.  Roles in numerous TV shows followed and, shortly before joining Santa Barbara in 1984, A was a regular in the short-lived series Whiz Kids.

    When A met his wife, Leslie, he was about to marry someone else, but four years and a divorce later they were re-united and, in July 1986, their son, Dakota Lee, was born.  "Dakota means friend in Indian," A explains, "and, as my mother is part Blackfoot Indian from the Dakotas, we call him Cody for short."

    Although apprehensive when first approached about doing a daytime soap.  A is now pleased that he took the plunge.  "Working on set almost every day has helped me to relax in front of the camera and I'm a much better actor now," he says.

  Return to Interviews page