Despite the mysterious initial in place of his first name, A. Martinez is a versatile American actor with over half a century of screen experience. He has won more than a dozen awards for his roles in shows such as General Hospital, The Bay, and Santa Barbara. The latter also saw him nominated for the Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Actor seven years running from 1987 to 1993. Among his recent roles are an award-winning part in the 2021 film, Symphoria, a five-year tenure playing Eddie Hernandez in Days of Our Lives, and the part of Master Pakku in the 2022 TV series, Avatar: The Last Airbender.
Martinez (the A stands for Adolfo) was born in California but is of Mexican, Apache, Northern European, and Piegen Blackfoot heritage. Drawing on a multitude of talents, he excelled at both acting and sports as a young man, even playing semi-pro baseball for five seasons. However, it was acting that won out and he made his screen debut in the late 1960s, playing bit parts in series and films such as John Wayne’s The Cowboys, Whiz Kids, and Barnaby Jones. Finally, in 1984, he landed a leading role, playing Cruz Castillo in Santa Barbara, an NBC soap opera that ran for seven years, winning many Daytime Emmy and Soap Digest Awards and being nominated for countless others.
In the early 1990s, Martinez also had a recurring role in LA Law, but his next major soap role came in 2000 with the part of Roy DiLucca in General Hospital. Further soap roles followed over the years, including One Life to Live and The Bold and the Beautiful, whilst his portrayals of Jacob Nighthorse in Longmire and Nardos Ramos in The Bay showed that 50 years into his career, he is still firing on all cylinders.
