Marty York was born on August 23, 1980 in Auburn CA. A woman named Nelda discovered him at an elementary school play and asked his mother if he would be interested in doing plays at the local community theater where he would learn his chops on stage and find his passion and love for acting. After starring in numerous plays Nelda recommended his mother take him to Hollywood to try his hand in the television and film industry. His aunt lived in Los Angeles and worked as a background performer casting director and put Marty and his mother in a film with the late great Jon Candy called, “Delirious.” When the director yelled cut Marty did Jon Candy’s lines to his mother and Jon walked over and said, “that’s pretty good kid” where he signed his autograph on a piece of toilet paper and gave Marty’s mother a number to a talent agent.
Marty auditioned for the agent and would have an audition the same day for a Colgate toothpaste commercial. Marty ended up landing the commercial and that was his first taste of Hollywood. He was then hired to play an Italian kid in a Ragu spaghetti sauce commercial. After that Marty had a brief dry spell until he landed the role of Alan “Yeah-Yeah” McClennan in the iconic 90’s film “The Sandlot” which would change his life forever. He went on to guest star on shows like “Wings,” “Saved By the Bell,” “Slider’s,” and landed a recurring role on the 1st season of the show “Boy Meets World.”
Things were looking up for Marty until 1997 when he was involved in a 60 MPH head on collision where he briefly died on scene from loss of blood and shattered both of his legs. After this Marty went through extensive rehab and left the entertainment industry until 2013 when he attended the 20th anniversary of “The Sandlot” and saw all the guys he hadn’t seen in years. This lit a fire in Marty to return to the entertainment industry again and that same year he signed with an agent and shot a national “Old Spice” commercial which he starred in, as well as a “Tecate” Beer commercial, and a “7UP” commercial with comedian Chelsea Handler. He went on to do independent films like, “The Brother Sinclair,” and guest star on Emmy nominated shows like Showtime’s “Smilf.” Tragedy struck again in 2017 when Marty’s younger sister Nadia died of a fentanyl overdose. It took years of rehab to recover from that loss only to go through tragedy again when Marty’s mother was murdered in October of 2023 by a man she was seeing. Marty continues to move forward with a never give up mentality and share his story. He recently had a guest starring role on “Abbott Elementary” and is currently working on a documentary with an award-winning producer about his life set to come out in 2026.
