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Before Steve Martin was a national name, he was a teenager in Anaheim, helping visitors make sense of a brand-new fantasy. Disneyland opened on July 17, 1955, with Walt Disney as its founder and driving force. And somewhere in that swirl of excitement, Martin began at ground level: selling guidebooks.
It’s such a wonderfully humble beginning for someone who would later command theaters and television screens. He has said he started working at Disneyland in his teens, and early on, his job was to hand guests the little paper promise of the place — a map, a plan, a way in. Then he moved deeper into the performance itself.
After guidebooks came the magic shop. There, Martin demonstrated tricks, dealt directly with guests, and learned sleight-of-hand the practical way: by doing it, again and again, in front of people who could drift away the second he got dull. That may be the most useful comedy school imaginable. Martin has credited his Disneyland years with teaching him timing, crowd work, and how to hold an audience’s attention. Not glamorous lessons, exactly. Better ones.
He also watched. While working at the park, he spent time at the edges of performances, studying entertainers from the sidelines. One of the figures he later identified as an influence was Wally Boag, the comic standout of the Golden Horseshoe Revue, one of Disneyland’s signature live shows during Martin’s years there. You can almost feel the apprenticeship in that: a young worker looking past the souvenir version of the park and into the machinery of delight.
Martin later worked at Knott’s Berry Farm too, studied philosophy in college, and then left to pursue performing full time. In the 1970s, he became nationally known through stand-up, television, and recordings. But this is why his Disneyland jobs matter in Anaheim’s history. They tie a future comedy legend to the city’s most famous attraction — and remind us that before a performer finds a stage, he may first have to sell you the map.