Sandy Martin

With a weathered countenance and over 100 credits to her name, tireless actress Sandy Martin is one of cinema's unsung heroes. Audiences today may remember her as mother to Rob McElhenney's character on FX's sacred cow-slaughtering sitcom "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia," but Martin's career stretches as far back as the late '70s. She made countless appearances on primetime crime dramas of the era, including "Hill Street Blues" and "Matlock," and practiced her comedic timing on the courtroom comedy "Night Court." Martin played a bartender in the high-velocity 1994 Keanu Reeves actioner "Speed," and appeared alongside future Oscar-winner Tilda Swinton in the Susan Streitfeld-helmed legal drama, "Female Perversions" in 1996. Martin had a cult hit on her hands in 2004 when "Napoleon Dynamite" exploded onto the pop culture scene; she played Napoleon's grandmother in Jared Hess's indie sleeper sensation. As active in police procedurals as ever, Martin appeared in favorites like "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," "CSI: NY," and "Cold Case." In 2008, she scored a minor role in the Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston-led canine flick, "Marley & Me." Elsewhere in TV, Martin played a recurring character on the HBO polygamy drama, "Big Love," and made multiple appearances in Iris Bahr's cable character comedy, " Svetlana."