Andrea Martin was born in 1947 in Portland, Maine, the eldest of three children of Sybil A. (née Manoogian) and John Papazian Martin (Armenian: Ջոն Փազազյան Մարտին). Her paternal grandparents were Armenian immigrants who moved to the U.S. from the Ottoman Empire to escape the Armenian Genocide. Her grandfather changed the family’s name from Papazian to Martin. Her maternal grandparents were Armenians from Yerevan and Constantinople (now Istanbul). Her father owned Martin’s Foods, a grocery store chain.

Soon after graduating from Emerson College, Martin won a role in a touring company of You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown. After frequent visits to Toronto, she relocated from New York City to Toronto in 1970 and immediately found steady work in television, film, and theater.

In 1972, Martin played the character of Robin in a Toronto production of Godspell, with a company that included future stars Gilda Radner, Martin Short, Eugene Levy, Victor Garber, and musical director Paul Shaffer. Two of her early film roles were in horror films, 1973’s Cannibal Girls, for which she won the Sitges Film Festival Award for Best Actress, and in 1974, as the bookish sorority sister Phyllis in Black Christmas, a Canadian slasher.

In 1976, she joined then-unknowns John Candy, Dave Thomas, Eugene Levy, Catherine O’Hara, Harold Ramis and Joe Flaherty on the Canadian sketch comedy television series, SCTV, which was set at fictional television station “Second City Television”, or SCTV, in Melonville. Martin most notably portrayed leopard-print-wearing station manager Edith Prickley, whose dealings with the staff, including president/owner Guy Caballero, clueless newscaster Earl Camembert, and washed-up actor Johnny LaRue, helped to provide much of the show’s humor. Other notable characters Martin played included incomprehensible European immigrant Pirini Scleroso, organ saleswoman Edna Boil, feminist TV show host Libby Wolfson, and children’s entertainer Mrs. Falbo. Her talent for impersonation was key in her humorous portrayals of Barbra Streisand, Ethel Merman, Arlene Francis, Pauline Kael, Sally Field, Sophia Loren, Beverly Sills, Lynn Redgrave, Linda Lavin, Bernadette Peters, Liza Minnelli, Connie Francis, Mother Teresa, Joni Mitchell, Alice B. Toklas, Patti Smith, Brenda Vaccaro and Indira Gandhi. In 1981, Martin was Emmy-nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Variety Show for her work in SCTV.

She has won two Emmy Awards for Outstanding Writing in a Variety or Music Program in 1982 and 1983. She has done considerable voice work in such animated film and television productions such as Anastasia, The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius, The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, Rugrats as Aunt Miriam, The Secret of NIMH 2: Timmy to the Rescue as Muriel – Floyd’s Wife, The Simpsons (as Apu’s mother), Recess as Lunchlady Harriet, the 1999 version of The Woody Woodpecker Show, Earthworm Jim, Kim Possible, The Buzz On Maggie, SpongeBob SquarePants, and Brother Bear 2. She also appeared in the 1993 television adaptation of Gypsy starring Bette Midler.

Her 1970’s stage work eventually included the Toronto branch of the improvisational comedy troupe The Second City, a group which produced almost the entire cast of SCTV. In 1992, she made her Broadway debut in the musical My Favorite Year, for which she won the Tony Award, Theatre World Award, and Drama Desk Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical.

In 1997, Martin starred in the television series Life… and Stuff.

Since 2000, Martin has been a prominent spokesperson for the Children of Armenia Fund (COAF) and host of their annual gala.

Her screen credits include All Over the Guy, in which she played Dr. Ellen Wyckoff—Dan Bucatinsky’s therapist mother, Club Paradise, Wag the Dog, All I Want for Christmas, Worth Winning, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Stepping Out, The Producers, and My Big Fat Greek Wedding, in which she portrayed Aunt Voula, a role she reprised in the small-screen adaptation, My Big Fat Greek Life, and the 2016 sequel, My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2. In 2006, she played a major role in the remake of Black Christmas. She played Helaine in the 2009 breakout independent film Breaking Upwards. In the episode titled Pupil, she played an emergency room patient on the Showtime series, Nurse Jackie, which was aired July 27, 2009. In 2012, she provided the voice of Penny in the American Dad! episode “Stan’s Best Friend” and appeared in an episode of 30 Rock titled “My Whole Life Is Thunder.” Martin recently appeared in Night at the Museum 3 and Hulu’s original series, Difficult People, starring Billy Eichner and Julie Klausner and produced by Amy Poehler. It premiered August 5, 2015. She played Prudy Pingleton on Hairspray Live!, which aired on December 7, 2016.

Other theater credits include the leads in The Rose Tattoo and Betty’s Summer Vacation, for which she won the Elliot Norton Award for Best Actress, both produced at The Huntington Theatre in Boston. During the winter of 2012–2013, she played Berthe, Pippin’s grandmother, in the American Repertory Theater production of Pippin in Cambridge, Massachusetts, singing the classic song “No Time At All”. The show transferred to Broadway at the Music Box Theatre and opened in April 2013. For Pippin Martin won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical, the Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical and the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical. Martin’s last performance as Berthe in the Broadway production of Pippin was on September 22, 2013. She appeared on Broadway in the new play written and directed by James Lapine, Act One, for which she received the Outer Critics Circle Award.

Martin is an Armenian American citizen. On December 8, 2017, on The Marilyn Denis Show, she announced that after 47 years in Canada, she had become a Canadian citizen. She was previously married to Bob Dolman and has two sons with him, Joe and Jack. Her two sons have dual Canadian-American status due to their father’s Canadian citizenship. Through her marriage to Dolman, she was the sister-in-law of actor/comedian Martin Short.

In 2018, Martin, along with fellow Canadians Seth Rogen and Leonard Cohen, was inducted into Canada’s Walk of Fame.

Martin was set to perform on Broadway opposite Nathan Lane beginning March 2019 in the world premiere of Taylor Mac’s new comedy Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus, directed by George C. Wolfe. On March 4, 2019, it was announced that Martin would withdraw from the production, having broken four ribs in an accident during rehearsal.