The cancellation of Santa Barbara was almost fatal to him
By A.M., Télé Star, 1997	Home   Cette page en Français

Constancy is not always, in Hollywood, the most respectable quality. A Martinez made recently the painful experience of it. And it seems that it was close so that this discovery sends him definitively to the bottom. Used to know success during more than 20 years, called to the first rows of the class at the time of Santa Barbara, he considered himself gladly exempted for ever from this long time in the wilderness which often threaten the TV shows actors. Obviously, he made a mistake.

In 1992, the end of Santa Barbara signs the death of his character, tenebrous Cruz Castillo, known by the televiewers to have accompanied for a long time Marcy Walker's road, a.k.a. Eden Capwell. "I was not prepared at all to find myself overnight unemployed”, he explains today. “Without knowing it, I had become a work addict. And I certainly did not imagine that the end of the series can cost me so much."

Too brutally deprived of his stages clothes, the actor feels naked and disarmed. He inherits of a role in L.A. Law, but the show disappears at his turn of the programs. A second impasse of which he keeps a bitter memory. "My agent made me understand that nobody wanted of me anymore", he tells. "I did nothing wrong. I had no enemies. I was simply not fashionable any more."

The presence of his wife and his children are going to push him aside several times from depression. Then chance is going, finally, to make a sign to him. A Martinez is chosen for a part in Grand Avenue, a TV movie intended for a cable channel. The project has nothing really decisive and unforgettable, otherwise the identity of its producer Robert Redford. "The same persons who did not want of me anymore one day earlier began shaking hands with me", explains A Martinez. "To have my name associated with that of Redford was enough for me to find credit and a market value again."

Consequence : a clear sky again, an agent become again pleasant and, more important, a robust return in business. Last February, A Martinez pushed with envy the door of the network NBC studios. He inherited from a regular role in Profiler, a fantastic series for which he had been called already twice, the previous year. His character, an expert in explosives named Nick Cooper, seems more naturally bright for action that for passion and romanticism. But it does not matter to him. "I feel being reborn" admits A Martinez. A return in life which he would never have thought of needing so much.