Martin Rackin was born in New York City, New York, USA. He was the son of a silk mill owner, and started work as a hat store delivery boy. His work became lighter as a copy boy for the New York Mirror, where he became a publicist and speech writer.

When the United States entered WWII (1941), Rackin went to Hollywood and served his time with the U.S. Air Force, and that experience served as inspiration for several of his next screenplays. He continued writing for the movie industry, and became a director for eighteen episodes of The Red Skelton Hour (1951), where he befriended the comedy screenwriter John Lee Mahin.

In 1958, he started a production company with his friend Mahin, known as Mahin-Rackin Productions, which proved fruitful in terms of writing, and production, namely with The Horse Soldiers (1959), and North to Alaska (1960). That project too, came to an end as Rackin became head of production at Paramount (1960-1964), but his aim at independent production led him to leave, and start his own production company, Martin Rackin Productions.

He died on April 15, 1976 in London, England.