Mardik Martin

One of the most influential screenwriters to remain largely unknown in pop culture, Mardik Martin was behind such landmark films as "Mean Streets" (1973) and "Raging Bull" (1980). Born in Abadan, Iran to Armenian parents, Martin attended a British boarding school in Iraq from the age of ten. At 18, his family sent him to New York in the hopes that he could obtain a higher quality college education in the U.S., and he eventually enrolled at New York University. There, while working as a busboy to pay his tuition, Martin met and became instant friends with a fellow student named Martin Scorsese. The two became inseparable, working together on Scorsese's student short film "It's Not Just You, Murray!" (1964) as they dreamed up ideas for future feature films. The pair finally had their chance in 1973 when Martin penned the script for "Mean Streets," continually reading dialogue for the film out loud into a tape recorder and playing it back as he revised it, hoping to make the words sound as realistic as possible. The film made a major impact, and Martin and Scorsese continued to collaborate, with Martin conducting interviews for Scorsese's documentary "Italianamerican" (1974), and later co-writing the script for "New York, New York" (1977). Martin would also team with visionary Ken Russell on the script for the Rudolph Valentino biopic "Valentino" (1977), though he was soon at Scorsese's side once again, writing the treatments for his acclaimed documentaries "The Last Waltz" (1978) and "American Boy: A Profile of Steven Prince" (1978). A short while later, Martin and Scorsese began planning a biopic of boxer Jake LaMotta. Martin researched the boxer meticulously and eventually wrote the script for what would become "Raging Bull"-one of the most acclaimed sports dramas of all time. Unfortunately, Martin had a growing dependence on cocaine around the same time, which ultimately led to him stepping away from Hollywood. He eventually became a professor of screenwriting at University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts where his experience and dynamism quickly made him one of the most beloved lecturers on staff. He returned to professional screenwriting just once in 2014, penning the screenplay for the film "The Cut" (2014), a historical drama dealing directly with the Armenian genocide. Martin passed away in 2019. He was 84 years old.