Charles Martinet was born on September 17, 1955 in San Jose, California, USA as Charles Andre Martinet. He is an actor and writer, best known for voicing many characters in Nintendo games including Mario, Luigi, Wario, Waluigi, Baby Mario, and Baby Luigi in video games from 1991 to 2023, including the Super Mario series, Luigi's Mansion series, WarioWare series, Yoshi's Island series, Super Smash Bros series & more. He has also voiced some minor characters in the Mario franchise including Male Piantas, Isle Delfino Commercial, Big Top, Clawgrip, Tryclyde, Mouser and Wart. He also voiced many characters in Super Punch-Out!! (1994).

He also voiced for Space Quest 6: The Spinal Frontier (1995) as Pa Conshohocken, Ray Trace, PiTooie, and voiced Coliey Joe, Big Moe, Lar-Man in the Stooge Fighter 3 Mini Game as a brief side job for Sierra-Online company in 1995 before moving on to work for Nintendo on Super Mario 64, a Nintendo 64 game.

Charles Martinet starred in cameo film roles including Matlock (1989) in the episode "The Captain". He also played in The Dead Pool (1988), Nine Months (1995), and The Game (1997), he also did the character voices for Anastasia 1997. The non Disney animated movie Beauty and the Beast (1997) by Enchanted Tales.

Charles Martinet originally wanted to be in law school and wasn't interested in voice acting due to the fear of speaking in public, during his school year, one of his friends convinced him to drop out of Law School and become a voice actor, he finally decided to drop out of Law School and pursue after acting and voice acting. He voiced for Mario in Mario Teaches Typing (1991), and practiced voice acting as Super Mario, he later voiced in Super Punch Out (1994) on a Super Nintendo game and in 1995 voiced the some of the characters at Sierra-Online company in the PC game Space Quest 6: The Spinal Frontier (1995).

One day while Charles was relaxing at the beach, he got a phone call from his agent and was told that he got the part to play Super Mario in Super Mario 64 in the English version. Since then he has been voice acting for Nintendo video games. He also voiced in other video games including Star Wars: X-Wing Alliance (1999), Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds (2001), Star Wars: Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast (2002), The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003), The Lord of the Rings: The Third Age (2004), Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time (2009), The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (2011), Dragon Ball Legends (2018).

On April 5th 2023, The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023) released, which he voiced Mario's dad in many languages (English, Catalan, European French, German, Italian, and European Spanish) He also voiced Giuseppe in nearly every language.

Charles Martinet retired as the voice of Mario, Luigi, Wario, Waluigi, Baby Mario and Baby Luigi in the Mario games on August 21st 2023 and became a Mario Ambassador for Nintendo the same day. His last Nintendo game he worked on before retiring was Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope (2022) as the voice of Mario and Luigi (although that game got ''The Tower of Doooom'' and ''The Last Spark Hunter'' DLC released in 2023, and featured his voice) He was replaced by Kevin Afghani starting from Super Mario Bros. Wonder (2023) and WarioWare: Move It! (2023). However, Martinet's voice is still being reused in re-releases of Mario games which he voiced Mario, Luigi, Wario, Waluigi, Baby Mario and Baby Luigi in, starting from Mario vs. Donkey Kong (2024).