Mexican and Apache on his father’s side, Piegan Blackfeet and Northern European on his mother’s. Actor, writer, singer with roles in the daytime soap operas Santa Barbara, General Hospital, One Life to Live, The Bold and the Beautiful, and Days of Our Lives, and the primetime dramas L.A. Law, Profiler, and Longmire. His feature films include The Cowboys (1972), Powwow Highway (1989) and Curse of Chucky (2013).

As of 2018, Martinez plays Mayo in the television series Queen of the South.