A romantic balladeer,  Martin began his career as a  band singer  in the thirties, graduated to romantic leads in Hollywood and had his greatest record success in the forties and early fifties.  Martin started out under his real name as a saxophonist in  Anson Weeks’  band in San Francisco in the  early thirties and later played  alongside Woody Herman.   He made his radio debut as a singer on  'The Lucky Strike Hour' and went to Hollywood in 1936.  There, he starred in a  string of light musicals,  including  ‘Sing Baby Sing’,  ‘Ziegfeld Girl’,   in which he introduced the song ‘You Stepped Out Of A Dream’,  and

also in ‘The Big Store’, and sang ‘The Tenement Symphony’. He recorded with Ray Noble on Columbia before his first chart success, ‘Tonight We Love’ which had been featured in the 1938 film, ‘Romance in the Dark’.
   After the war he had even greater success with ‘To Each His Own’, before joining RCA in 1948. Though his screen career faltered in the early fifties, he had continued record success with his versions of ‘La Vie en Rose’, ‘I Get Ideas’, and the dramatic ‘Kiss of Fire’. His last major hit was ‘Walk Hand in Hand’. In the sixties Martin formed a double act with his wife Cyd Charisse and they toured the cabaret circuit.