Robert Martin(1948-2020)
- Actor
- Writer
Robert Martin was the original editor of "Fangoria", the magazine of
horror and exploitation film. Martin steered the publication from 1979
to 1986 -- the slasher-film boom years. Martin's so-called "acting" was
a by-product of his career as a journalist, and included a prominent
role as a wheelchair-bound geek in "Madhouse", the first video made by
the band Anthrax (who were Fangoria readers), directed by Amos Poe. A
collaborative relationship with writer-director Frank Henenlotter
resulted in two produced screenplays, with Martin writing initial
drafts from Henenlotter's detailed outlines. In 1994, Martin, under the
name "Ed Flixman" became editor of "Sci-Fi Entertainment", the
"Official Magazine" of the Sci-Fi Channel, and continued in that
capacity through October of 1996. His column of film news continued to
run in that magazine, until an argument with the editor regarding
remarks in his column that the new editor feared might incur the wrath
of the Sci-Fi Channel. In December of 1996, Martin relocated from his
native New York to Los Angeles, where he mostly worked as an Internet
techie, but also wrote press materials for a few films, most notably
"The People vs. Larry Flynt," in which his description of Flynt as "the
last champion of the sexual revolution" stirred the wrath of Gloria
Steinem, generating considerable press for the film. (In Martin's
original, the phrase had been "the last champion of a failed sexual
revolution.") As of January, 2006, he is working as a blackjack dealer
in Las Vegas.