Jesse L. Martin
- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Jesse Martin was born Jesse Lamont Watkins in Virginia's Blue Ridge
mountain range. His mother, Virginia Price, was a college career
counselor. His father, Jesse Reed Watkins, was a truck driver. His
parents divorced when he was very young. His mother then moved his
family to Buffalo, New York. He and his four brothers took the surname
of his mother's second husband. His family calls him by his middle
name, Lamont. As a fourth-grader, a teacher cast him in a play and he
found his passion. After graduating from high school, he worked in
restaurants to afford the tuition at New York University. He then got
work on soaps and did commercials. His breakthrough came in a role in
Jonathan Larson's Pulitzer
Prize-winning Broadway musical Rent (1996).
That was followed up with TV exposure in his first starring role in the
series413 Hope St. (1997),
which aired on Fox.
